Skip to main content
Drink

Mixed Pickles

A pickled mixture of onions, apples, and cucumbers in vinegar with sherry, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mixed Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and thinly slice the onions, apples, and cucumbers.

  2. Place them into wide-necked bottles.

Pack and seal

  1. Add the sherry, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Cover with vinegar and seal the bottles tightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Vinegar + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Add tartness that balances the sweetness of the onions and the sharpness of the vinegar.
Small mild onions
Provide the main bulk and a mild, slightly sweet flavor as they soften in the vinegar.
Cucumbers
Contribute crisp texture and fresh flavor to the pickle.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and provides the sour taste that defines the pickle.

The step that matters

Sealing the bottles tightly. Vinegar is the preservative here, but a loose seal lets air in and can allow the vegetables to spoil or discolor. Keeping the bottles airtight protects the flavor and texture over time.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cucumber, vinegar, sherry, pepper):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cucumber, vinegar, sherry, 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.

More mixed pickles recipes

English 3 See all 133 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesApple WaterApple Water81 recipesCucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipes