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Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, cloves, cinnamon, alum, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil water and pour it over the cucumbers; let them sit for 24 hours.

  2. Wipe the cucumbers dry.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers; let them sit for another 24 hours.

  2. Change the vinegar, adding fresh vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, cloves, cinnamon sticks, alum, and salt.

  3. Heat the mixture until boiling and pour it over the cucumbers.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 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
Make up the vegetable base that the brine softens and flavors.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its sour bite and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, savory aroma and flavor to the brine.
Alum
Firms the cucumber flesh so the pickles stay crisp.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until boiling and pour it over the cucumbers. Boiling fully dissolves the sugar and salt and draws flavor from the spices into the liquid. Pouring the hot brine over the cucumbers lets it penetrate evenly, so the pickle tastes consistent throughout.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, egg. 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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