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Sliced Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, salt, alum, horseradish, mustard seeds, cloves, and cinnamon.

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

Sliced Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Place cucumbers in a jar or pail and cover with boiling water mixed with salt. Cover tightly and repeat this process for three mornings.

Make the vinegar

  1. On the fourth morning, scald enough cider vinegar to cover cucumbers.

  2. Add alum and horseradish root to the vinegar.

  3. Tie mustard, cloves, and cinnamon in a muslin bag and add to the vinegar.

Pack and seal

  1. Slice cucumbers into ½ inch thick pieces and place in glass jars.

  2. Pour the scalding vinegar mixture over the cucumbers and seal tightly.

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. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 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

Cucumbers
Main vegetable that becomes the crisp, pickled body of the dish.
Cider vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves and flavours the pickles.
Alum
Helps cucumber slices stay firm and crisp during pickling.
Horseradish root
Adds sharp, pungent heat that flavours the vinegar.
Mustard seeds
Contribute a pungent, slightly bitter spice flavour to the brine.

The step that matters

Scalding the vinegar and sealing over the cucumbers. The vinegar must be hot when poured over the cucumbers so the flavours penetrate and the jar is properly sealed. Pouring cool vinegar, or sealing loosely, risks spoilage and weaker flavour.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cider, vinegar, horse, radish, mustard, clove):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cider, vinegar, horse, radish, mustard, clove. 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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