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Sweet Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, salt, sugar, spices, and alum, preserved over several days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Leave part of the stems on the cucumbers and wash them.

  2. Place the cucumbers in a tub or stone jar.

Brine

  1. Make a brine with the salt and 6 quarts of boiling water, then pour it over the cucumbers.

  2. On the second and third days, pour off the brine, boil and skim it, then pour it back over the cucumbers while hot.

  3. On the fourth day, remove the pickles from the brine.

Alum and rest

  1. Dissolve the alum in 6 quarts of boiling water and pour it over the pickles.

  2. Let the pickles stand until the next day.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Green cucumbers
Form the pickles themselves, with their firm flesh taking up the brine and spices.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Coarse salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot brine back over the cucumbers. Pouring the brine back while it is still hot helps the pickles stay firm and gives the spices and salt a good start in penetrating the cucumbers.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, mustard, allspice, nutmeg. 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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