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Oil Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using oil, vinegar, spices, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pare cucumbers and slice them thin.

  2. Peel and chop onions finely.

  3. Layer cucumbers and onions with salt in a bowl, cover with a weighted plate, and let stand overnight.

  4. Drain thoroughly.

Make the brine and pack

  1. Dissolve the alum in boiling water.

  2. Mix remaining ingredients, add dissolved alum, and pour over cucumbers and onions.

  3. Mix well and bottle.

  4. For best flavor, let them stand for several months before using.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, sliced body of the pickle that the brine penetrates.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions, firming them and concentrating flavor.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a rounded mouthfeel to the brine.
Alum
Helps the cucumber slices stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Draining thoroughly after salting. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and onions. If excess liquid remains, it dilutes the vinegar brine and leaves the pickles soft and watery rather than crisp.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, mustard, celery, white wine, vinegar, olive):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, mustard, celery, white wine, vinegar, olive. 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.

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