Name: Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: 200 small cucumbers; 2 pounds sugar; 3 tablespoons white mustard; 3 tablespoons black mustard; 3 tablespoons juniper berries; a handful of green peppers; a handful of seed onions; vinegar

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak the cucumbers in brine overnight.

Scald and pour

In a kettle, scald the cucumbers in vinegar and then drain the vinegar.
Scald all other ingredients in fresh vinegar.
Pour the scalded mixture over the pickles.
Finally, add a bottle of chowchow.

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.

Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

Cucumbers: Form the pickles themselves; brining firms their flesh before scalding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
White mustard: Adds a sharp, pungent flavour from its seeds.
Black mustard: Adds a sharper, more pungent heat from its seeds.

Swap the onion

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

Horseradishfits better
Radishfits better
Lettucefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, sugar, mustard, 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.