Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Cucumber Pickles II
Ingredients
Directions
Brine the cucumbers
Place small cucumbers in a jar.
Pour boiling water over the cucumbers and add enough coarse sea salt to season nicely.
Boil this water for 4 consecutive mornings.
On the fourth morning, add a pinch of alum.
Pickle in vinegar
On the fifth morning, take enough vinegar to cover the pickles.
In a porcelain kettle, combine the vinegar with a little sugar and the spices tied in a bag, and bring to a boil.
Drain the cucumbers from the salt water and place them in a stone jar.
Pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers until the jar is filled.
Optionally, add horseradish to the vinegar.
These pickles will keep all winter.
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.
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Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together640 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Cucumber + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,112 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Small cucumbers
- Form the body of the pickles, which firm and crisp as they cure.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brining days.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
- Sugar
- Softens the sharpness of the vinegar, adding a little sweetness for balance.
The step that matters
Bringing the vinegar to a boil with the spices. Boiling the vinegar with the spices extracts their aroma into the liquid, and pouring it boiling over the cucumbers helps seal and preserve the jar. Keep the liquid hot when it goes in.
Swap the horseradish
The recipe marks horseradish as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, sugar):
- Radishfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Beetrootfits about as well
- Horseradishthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, 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.
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