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Small Cucumber Pickles

Pickled small cucumbers preserved in a hot vinegar brine with onion, cloves, mustard seeds, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Small Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and wipe the cucumbers.

  2. Cover them with boiling brine and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Remove and wipe the cucumbers, then place them in clean jars.

Pickle and rest

  1. Cover with hot vinegar spiced with onion, cloves, mustard seeds, and mace.

  2. Seal the jars and let them sit for two weeks before using.

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

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

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 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
Provide the crisp main body of the pickle that absorbs the brine and vinegar flavour.
Vinegar
Adds the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Mustard seeds
Contribute a sharp, pungent flavour that infuses into the vinegar during resting.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice that flavours the vinegar over time.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Covering the cucumbers with boiling brine for 24 hours. The brine must be properly prepared and fully cover the cucumbers so salt draws out water and firms the flesh, helping them stay crisp rather than soft during pickling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, onion, clove, mustard. 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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