Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a two-gallon stone jar with very small cucumbers and cover them with boiling water and coarse sea salt.
On the second and third mornings, boil the brine again and pour it over the cucumbers.
On the fourth morning, remove the cucumbers from the brine and place them in boiling water with dissolved alum.
Let the cucumbers sit in the alum water for twenty-four hours.
On the fifth and sixth days, cover the cucumbers with boiling spiced vinegar and let them sit until used.
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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Cucumber + eggtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,346 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,922 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the cucumber
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar):
- Cucumberthe original
- Mustardfits about as well
- Capsicumfits less well
- Shallotfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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