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Dill Pickles

A method for pickling large cucumbers with dill, garlic, red peppers, alum, salt, vinegar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dill Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jars

  1. Pack large cucumbers in jars with dill, garlic, and red peppers at the bottom and top.

  2. Add a pinch of alum to the top of each jar to keep pickles crisp.

Make the brine and seal

  1. Boil the salt, vinegar, and water together.

  2. Pour the hot liquid over the cucumbers in the jars and seal them.

Cure

  1. Let the jars stand for 6 weeks or longer 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. Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Dill + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

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

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 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
Form the pickles themselves, becoming crisp and tangy as they cure.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their sour flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw water and flavour into the cucumbers.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm during the long soak, keeping the pickles crisp.

The step that matters

Pour the hot liquid over the cucumbers and seal the jars. The brine must be boiling hot when poured so the cucumbers are fully covered and the jars seal well. Keeping the contents submerged and airtight limits spoilage during the long cure.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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