Name: Dill Pickles
Ingredients: medium-sized green cucumbers; grape leaves; dill; heavy salt brine (enough to float a raw egg)

Why it works: Cucumber and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dill Pickles

Ingredients

medium-sized green cucumbers
grape leaves
dill
heavy salt brine (enough to float a raw egg)

Directions

Wash and dry the cucumbers.
Slip them into boiling hot brine for 2-3 hours or until cold.
In an earthenware crock or old whisky barrel, layer grape leaves, dill, and cucumbers, ending with grape leaves and dill on top.
Boil the same salt brine again, then let it cool.
Pour the cooled brine over the cucumbers until the vessel is full.
Place a porcelain or earthenware lid on top and weigh it down with a heavy rock.

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.

Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together530 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + grapetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Grape + dilltop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together110 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Dill + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,008 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cucumber + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,346 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).