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German Pickles

Pickled cucumbers with onions, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery seed, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

German Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle sliced cucumbers with coarse sea salt and place in cheesecloth with a weight on top. Let stand overnight.

Make the pickles

  1. In the morning, add sliced onions to the cucumbers and cover with vinegar.

  2. Stir in sugar, turmeric, celery seed, and white pepper.

  3. Cook the mixture for about 1 hour.

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. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, releasing moisture when salted and firming as they sit.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, crisping them and seasoning the pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the brine.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften in the vinegar mixture.

The step that matters

Salting the cucumbers overnight. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers through osmosis. Rinsing and draining well matters, since leftover salt and water can make the pickles overly salty or soft once the brine is added.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery. 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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