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An Easy Mode of Pickling Cucumbers

A method for pickling cucumbers using salt, alum, boiling water, and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

An Easy Mode of Pickling Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Combine 1½ pounds of coarse sea salt with 4 quarts of water in a large container.

  2. Add cucumbers and let them soak for 24 hours.

Alum soak

  1. Drain the saltwater and fill the jar with 5 quarts of boiling water.

  2. Add 1 ounce of alum and let the cucumbers sit for a few hours on a warm hearth.

Pickle

  1. Pour off the water and fill the jar with hot vinegar seasoned with cloves, black pepper, and mace to taste.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers (in the method)
The main food being preserved; they firm and turn crisp-tender as they cure in salt and alum.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, helping them stay firm and resist spoilage.
Alum
Adds firmness to the cucumber flesh, helping pieces keep their crunch through pickling.
Hot vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the alum soak. Alum firms the cucumber tissue, but the soak only works when the cucumbers are fully submerged in water at the right stage. Skipping the fresh boiling water rinse or leaving the cucumbers too long can leave them soft or overly firm.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, 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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