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Spiced Vinegar

A pickled cucumber and onion relish preserved in vinegar spiced with ginger, mustard seed, celery seed, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Spiced Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mix cucumbers and onions, sprinkling alternate layers with ¾ cup coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the mixture stand overnight.

  3. Soak peppers in brine overnight.

  4. Drain vegetables and rinse in clear water for 1 to 2 hours.

  5. Drain vegetables well.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Place whole spices in a cheesecloth bag, adding crushed celery seed and mustard seed loose.

  2. Add spices to vinegar and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour hot spiced vinegar over the vegetables.

  4. Let the vegetables stand for 24 hours.

Pack and process

  1. Pack vegetables in jars, distributing pepper evenly and flattening cucumber slices against the jar sides.

  2. Fill jars with the same vinegar and tap to remove air bubbles.

  3. Garnish with strips of red pepper or spice pieces.

  4. Process 12-ounce or pint jars for 15 minutes at 180°F.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 once salted and drained.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming them and reducing their moisture.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor that carries through the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining and rinsing after the salt stand. Salt draws out water and the rinse removes excess salt. Draining well before adding the hot vinegar keeps the brine from being diluted and the vegetables from softening unevenly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, ginger, mustard, pepper, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, ginger, mustard, pepper, clove, cinnamon. 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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