Skip to main content
Drink

Dill Pickles

A pickle made by layering cucumbers with dill and leaves, brined in salt, water, and vinegar, then stored for 60 days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Dill and cucumber 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 keg

  1. Cover the bottom of a keg with a layer of grape leaves and a few cherry leaves.

  2. Add a layer of dill, then a layer of cucumbers, alternating until filled.

  3. Make brine with 2 handfuls of coarse sea salt, 1 pail of water, and ½ cup of vinegar.

  4. Place a stone on top of the pickles and cover tightly.

Ferment

  1. Let sit for about 60 days 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. Dill + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  2. Grape + cherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cherry + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Cherry + dilltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Good-sized cucumbers
Form the pickles themselves, packed in layers to be preserved in brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and keeps spoilage microbes in check during fermentation.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps keep the brine sour and protective.
Dill
Contributes its characteristic aroma and flavour to the pickles.

The step that matters

Placing the stone and covering tightly. The cucumbers must stay fully submerged under brine; anything exposed to air can spoil or grow mould. A weight and a tight cover keep them below the liquid.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cherry, dill, cucumber, 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesCucumber PicklesCucumber Pickles25 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesGrape FrappeGrape Frappe10 recipes