Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Pickled Cucumbers
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cucumbers
Wash cucumbers carefully and place them in jars.
Make a weak brine by dissolving ½ cup of coarse sea salt in 1.5 gallons of water.
Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and cover; repeat this for three mornings, skimming thoroughly each time.
Make the vinegar bath
On the fourth day, heat vinegar in a porcelain kettle and add a piece of alum.
When the vinegar is scalding hot, add cucumbers until covered; do not boil, just skim off as soon as they are heated through.
Replace with more cucumbers, adding a small piece of alum each time.
After this process, discard the vinegar and replace it with good cider or white wine vinegar.
Spice and seal
Add spices, mustard seed, and red peppers to the vinegar.
Sort the pickles and place them in stone or glass jars, then pour the hot spiced vinegar over them.
Seal the jars and store them away; they will be fine and crisp after a year.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,281 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together380 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together849 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cucumbers
- The main vegetable; they are cured in brine and then heated in vinegar to become pickles.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine, helping firm the pickles over the curing days.
- Vinegar
- Provides the sour acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their sharp flavour.
- Alum
- Added in small amounts to help the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during heating.
- Mustard seed
- Adds a pungent, aromatic flavour to the spiced vinegar.
The step that matters
Heat the cucumbers in vinegar without boiling. Boiling softens cucumber flesh and makes it mushy. Heating only until the cucumbers are warmed through keeps them firmer and crisper.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, mustard, pepper):
- Lentilsfits better
- Black-eyed peafits better
- Sesamefits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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