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Cucumber Pickles I

A method for pickling cucumbers using water, salt, alum, vinegar, spices, and sugar over several days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles I

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Scald the water.

  2. Pour it over the cucumbers mixed with salt. Let stand for 3 days.

  3. Pour off the brine. Make a fresh brine with the same proportions. Repeat once more.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. On the ninth day, mix ½ water and ½ vinegar. Add alum. Scald.

  2. Pour over the cucumbers. Let stand for 6 days.

  3. Pour off the liquid.

Spice and finish

  1. Prepare the final vinegar mixture with spices, peppers, and sugar to taste. For every 1 quart of vinegar, use 200 small pickles. If the vinegar is too strong, dilute with ¼ water.

  2. For every pint of pickles, add 1 teaspoon each of black pepper and allspice. Add ½ teaspoon each of cloves, mustard seed, and celery seed. Add small pieces of horseradish.

  3. Scald all ingredients together. Pour over the pickles.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 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 (in the method)
Form the pickles themselves, absorbing brine and flavour over the long soaking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, firming their texture during brining.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during the final pickling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Scalding the brine with alum. Alum firms the cucumber tissue, but it must be fully dissolved in hot liquid before the pour. Undissolved alum can leave gritty spots and uneven firmness.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, mustard, horseradish, sugar. 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 →

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