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Sliced Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber and onion relish seasoned with celery seed, mustard seed, olive oil, vinegar, and powdered alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Sliced Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cucumbers and onions very thin, then sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain well and add celery seed, mustard seed, olive oil, vinegar, and powdered alum.

Pack and pour

  1. In a crock, layer the cucumbers and onions, sprinkling in some of the seeds as you go until the crock is filled.

  2. Pour the oil and vinegar mixture over the layered cucumbers and onions.

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. Celery + mustardtop 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. Onion + mustardtop 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. Onion + celerytop 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
Provide the crisp, watery body of the pickle that the brine is absorbed into.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma that mellows during the overnight salting.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that infuses the pickles as they stand.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a richer mouthfeel to the brine.
Powdered alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Draining after the overnight salting. Salt draws large amounts of water out of the cucumbers and onions. Draining well removes that liquid so the brine is not diluted and the pickles stay crisp rather than soft.

Swap the onion

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

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

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