Name: Sliced Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: large green cucumbers; 4 tablespoons coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons ground mustard; cold vinegar

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 ↓

Sliced Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

large green cucumbers
4 tablespoons coarse sea salt
2 tablespoons ground mustard
cold vinegar

Directions

Wash the cucumbers and slice them into a 1‑quart jar until filled.
Add 4 tablespoons of coarse sea salt and 2 tablespoons of ground mustard.
Cover the cucumbers with cold vinegar and seal the jar.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Large green cucumbers: Make up the bulk of the jar and provide the crisp, watery body of the pickle.
Coarse sea salt: Draws water out of the cucumber slices, which firms their texture and helps them stay crisp.
Cold vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that flavors the cucumbers and helps preserve them.
Ground mustard: Adds pungent flavor and aroma to the brine.