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Spiced Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe with mustard, juniper, celery seed, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spiced Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak the cucumbers in salt water for 3 days.

  2. Boil the cucumbers for 15 minutes.

Pickle

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, white mustard seed, black mustard seed, juniper berries, celery seed, green peppers, sugar, small onions, and alum.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers and let them stand for 1 day.

  3. Repeat this process 3 or 4 times.

  4. On the last time, mix the prepared mustard with the vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers.

  5. Seal the cucumbers in bottles.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickle itself, becoming crisp-firm and absorbing the brine as they stand.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during soaking, helping them stay firm.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Prepared mustard
Adds pungent mustard flavour to the final brine poured over the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Repeating the hot pour over the cucumbers. Each hot brine pour and standing period slowly draws flavour into the cucumbers and sets their texture. Skipping repeats or cooling the mixture too early leaves the pickle weaker and less evenly seasoned.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, mustard, celery, pepper, sugar, onion):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, celery, pepper, sugar, onion. 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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