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Sweet Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe with vinegar, salt, sugar, spices, and alum for preservation.

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 cucumbers in a tub or stone jar.

  3. Make a brine with the salt and 6 quarts of boiling water.

  4. Pour the brine over the cucumbers.

Brine

  1. On the second and third days, pour off the brine.

  2. Boil and skim the brine.

  3. Pour the boiled brine back over the cucumbers while hot.

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

Alum soak

  1. Dissolve the alum in 6 quarts of boiling water.

  2. Pour the alum solution over the pickles.

  3. 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

Cucumbers
The main vegetable that is preserved and becomes the pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Coarse salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiled brine back while hot. Hot brine softens the cucumbers' skins so they can take up the flavour and stay firm. Brine that cools before it is poured back gives less even pickling and may leave the pickles less crisp.

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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