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Oil Pickles

Pickled cucumbers and onions preserved in oil, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Oil Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pare cucumbers and slice them thin; peel and chop onions finely.

  2. Place cucumbers and onions in alternate layers with salt; cover with a weighted plate and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain thoroughly.

Make the brine

  1. Dissolve the alum in the boiling water.

  2. Mix remaining ingredients, add dissolved alum, and pour over cucumbers and onions; mix well and bottle.

Mature

  1. For best flavor, let them stand for several months 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens flavor and preserves the pickles.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the pickling liquid.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.
Onions
Add sweetness and pungency that mellow during the long standing.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent aroma and flavor to the pickles.

The step that matters

Drain thoroughly. Water left from the salted vegetables would dilute the vinegar and oil mixture and soften the pickles. Removing it keeps the brine strong and the cucumbers crisper.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, white wine, vinegar, olive):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, white wine, vinegar, olive. 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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