Name: Cucumber Pickles
Ingredients: Cucumbers; Coarse sea salt; Water; Cider vinegar; Allspice; Cloves; Small onions or garlic cloves; Alum; Sugar (optional)

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the cucumbers thoroughly.
Make a brine with enough salt and water to float an egg, and pour it over the cucumbers.
Place a weight on top to keep the cucumbers submerged and let them stand for nine days.
After nine days, remove the cucumbers and rinse them in fresh water.
Line the bottom of a kettle with green cabbage leaves, then add the cucumbers.
Mix equal parts vinegar and water to cover the cucumbers, and add a layer of cabbage leaves on top.
Heat over a slow fire until the water is hot, but do not let it simmer.
Once the cucumbers are perfectly green, remove them and let them drain.
Wipe the cucumbers dry and pack them into jars with allspice, cloves, and small onions or garlic.
Add a piece of alum to each jar to keep the cucumbers firm.
Cover the pickles with the best cider vinegar, seal the jars tightly, and store in a cool, dry place.
For added flavor, mix in one tablespoon of sugar.

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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Cucumber + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together501 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cider, vinegar, allspice, clove, sugar):

Mustardfits better
Radishfits better
Horseradishfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cider, vinegar, allspice, clove, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.