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Kalamazoo Pickles

A cucumber pickle made with a sweet vinegar brine and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Kalamazoo Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Remove the flower end from the cucumbers.

  2. Cover cucumbers with a brine made of water and salt; let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the cucumbers.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil the vinegar, alum, and spices together.

  2. Pack the cucumbers tightly into jars.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cucumbers and seal immediately.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp body of the pickle that the brine and vinegar penetrate.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brining step.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm during pickling.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling vinegar mixture and seal immediately. The vinegar must be at a full boil and the jars sealed at once so the heat and acidity reach the cucumbers and the contents stay sterile and airtight while cooling.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, 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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