Skip to main content
Main

Processing Cucumbers

A method for processing cucumbers with alum and turmeric, involving soaking, heating, and stirring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,102 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Processing Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Soak

  1. Fill a tank with cucumbers from brine, about ¾ full.

  2. Cover cucumbers with cold fresh water and let sit for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the first water and cover cucumbers again with fresh water.

Treat and heat

  1. Add 2 pounds of alum for every 50 gallons of cucumbers in the tank.

  2. Turn on steam and heat cucumbers to 130°F (54°C).

  3. Before heating is complete, add 2 ounces of turmeric for each cask of cucumbers.

  4. Stir cucumbers frequently with a long paddle.

Rest and sort

  1. Let cucumbers sit in the second water for 10 to 12 hours before sorting.

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 + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable being pickled; they absorb the brine and firm up during treatment.
Alum
Firms the cucumber tissue so it stays crisp rather than softening during pickling.
Turmeric
Adds yellow color and a mild aroma to the finished pickles.

The step that matters

Adding alum before heating. Alum works by firming pectin in cucumber tissue. Adding it to the water before steam heating helps the cucumbers stay firm rather than going soft under heat.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes