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Raw Pickle

A quick raw pickle made by mincing cabbage, onions, and cucumbers, salting, draining, and covering with vinegar and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Raw Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the cabbage, onions, and ripe cucumbers together.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

Drain and jar

  1. In the morning, drain the mixture.

  2. Put the mixture into jars and cover with cold vinegar and a little pepper.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. 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

Cabbage
Provides the crisp, firm bulk of the pickle.
Onions
Adds sharp, savoury flavour that mellows during the salting.
Ripe cucumbers
Contributes moisture and a fresh, crunchy texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and concentrating flavour.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.

The step that matters

Salting overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis. Too little salt or too short a rest leaves them soft and watery, so the pickle loses crispness and keeps less well.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Cauliflowerfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, vinegar, pepper. 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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