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Olive Oil Pickles

Pickled cucumbers preserved in olive oil, mustard seed, celery seed, onions, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Olive Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice enough medium-sized cucumbers to fill a gallon jar without peeling them.

  2. Pack cucumbers in layers with ⅔ cup coarse sea salt and let stand for three hours.

  3. Drain carefully and layer again with mustard seed, celery seed, and chopped onions.

Pickle and serve

  1. Add 1 cup olive oil and cover with good cold vinegar.

  2. Pickles are ready for immediate use but improve with standing.

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. Mustard + oniontop 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. Celery + oniontop 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
Form the crisp body of the pickles, which the brine and vinegar then flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cucumbers, firming them and seasoning the pickles.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the pickling liquid.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the jar.
Olive oil
Adds richness and a fat-based coating that carries the seasonings.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives them their tang.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt rest. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers; draining carefully removes that liquid so the pickles stay crisp and the oil and vinegar are not diluted.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, celery, olive, 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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