Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Cucumber Pickle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the vegetables
Cut each cucumber into four pieces, scoop out the seeds, and chop the cucumber.
Slice the onions and chop the green peppers.
Combine all the vegetables in a bag.
Salt and season
Add 1 quart of coarse sea salt, 1 tablespoon of celery seed, 1 tablespoon of allspice, and ½ tablespoon of cloves to the bag.
Let the mixture stand overnight.
Pickle and pack
Boil 5 quarts of vinegar with sugar to taste.
Let the vinegar stand overnight.
Remove the pickles from the bag and place them in a jar.
Pour the vinegar over the pickles.
They are ready to use.
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.
-
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,422 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cucumbers
- Provide the main crisp, watery bulk of the pickle.
- Onions
- Add sharpness and savoury flavour that mellows during standing.
- Green peppers
- Contribute crunch and a fresh, grassy bite.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavour.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its tang.
The step that matters
Salting overnight. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers, onions and peppers by osmosis. Draining them well before adding the hot vinegar keeps the pickles crisp rather than soft and diluted.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, celery, allspice, clove, vinegar, sugar):
- Mustardfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, celery, allspice, clove, vinegar, sugar. 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 cucumber pickles recipes
You might also like
Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes
Celery Stew25 recipes
Celery Croquettes16 recipes
Celery Cream Soup15 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.