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Cucumber Vinegar

A preserved cucumber vinegar made with cucumbers, vinegar, onions, shallots, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 264 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumber Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers.

  2. Place them in a stone jar or wide-mouthed bottle with the vinegar.

  3. Slice the onions and shallots, and add them along with the other ingredients to the cucumbers.

Steep and bottle

  1. Let it stand for 4 to 5 days.

  2. Boil the mixture, then let it cool.

  3. Strain the liquid through a piece of muslin and store it in small, well-sealed 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. Cucumber + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main vegetable flavor and body, softening and releasing their taste into the vinegar as it steeps.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that extracts flavor from the vegetables and helps preserve the finished liquid.
Onions
Add sharp, savory aroma that mellows during steeping and boiling.
Shallots
Add a milder onion-like aroma and subtle sweetness to the blend.
Pepper
Contributes pungent, sharp aroma and background heat to the liquid.

The step that matters

Letting it stand for 4 to 5 days. The vinegar needs time to draw flavor out of the cucumbers, onions and shallots. Cutting the steeping short leaves the liquid weak and under-flavored, because extraction is gradual.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, shallot, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, shallot, pepper. 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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