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Pickle of Ripe Cucumbers

A pickle made from ripe cucumbers, salt, vinegar, ginger, allspice, turmeric, horseradish, mustard seeds, garlic, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 ↓

Pickle of Ripe Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel and split the cucumbers, remove the seeds, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them sit for 24 hours.

  3. Sun-dry the cucumbers until moderately dry.

  4. Wash them with vinegar.

Make the brine

  1. In a pot, boil the vinegar with grated ginger, allspice, and turmeric.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Pack and mature

  1. Layer the cucumbers in a jar, alternating with horseradish, mustard seeds, garlic, and onions.

  2. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  3. Seal the jar tightly and store it away.

  4. Allow the pickle to mature for several months 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 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
Form the crisp body of the pickle, which softens and flavours as it matures.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the spiced vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its golden colour and an earthy flavour.
Allspice
Contributes warm, clove-like aroma to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Sun-drying the cucumbers until moderately dry. Removing surface moisture before packing helps the cucumbers stay firm and lets them absorb the vinegar brine rather than diluting it. Drying too little leaves the pickle watery; drying too far makes it leathery.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, allspice, turmeric, horseradish, mustard, garlic):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, allspice, turmeric, horseradish, mustard, garlic. 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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