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Cucumbers or Other Small Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumbers or Other Small Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spiced vinegar

  1. Combine vinegar, ginger, celery seed, cinnamon, turmeric, horseradish, garlic, black pepper, cloves, mace, and allspice in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture, then let it cool before adding garlic and horseradish.

  3. In a separate pot, boil the sugar in the vinegar until dissolved, then pour it over the spice mixture.

Add the cucumbers

  1. Boil the cucumbers in plain vinegar before adding them to the spiced vinegar.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + turmerictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Cucumbers (in the method)
Form the body of the pickles and take on flavor from the spiced vinegar.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, warm heat that builds the spice profile of the brine.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture, then let it cool before adding garlic and horseradish. Garlic and horseradish are volatile aromatics whose pungency fades with prolonged heat. Adding them after the boil and cooling keeps their sharp flavor in the brine.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, ginger, celery, cinnamon, turmeric, horseradish, pepper):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, celery, cinnamon, turmeric, horseradish, pepper. 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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