Skip to main content
Drink

Cucumber Pickle

A traditional cucumber pickle made with sugar, vinegar, and spices, left to mature for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in water to remove salt.

  2. Dissolve alum in weak vinegar until it feels rough.

  3. Cover cucumbers with grape or cabbage leaves.

  4. Simmer the cucumbers in the vinegar until they turn bright green.

  5. Remove cucumbers and drop them in hot water.

  6. Let the cucumbers stand.

Make the seasoned vinegar

  1. Combine sugar, horseradish, garlic, cinnamon, and ginger in the vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Pickle

  1. Pour the seasoned vinegar over the cucumbers in a jar.

  2. Let the pickles sit for 2 to 3 weeks before using.

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. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Radish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 softened, greened and then preserved in the spiced vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sour flavor.
Alum
Firms the cucumber flesh so it stays crisp during pickling.
Horse-radish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and bite to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer the cucumbers in the vinegar until they turn bright green. Simmering in acidic liquid can turn cucumbers dull olive, and overcooking softens them. Stopping when they are bright green keeps them firm and vivid.

Swap the garlic

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, sugar, vinegar, horse, radish, cinnamon, ginger. 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesGinger PopGinger Pop22 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesGinger WineGinger Wine12 recipes