Skip to main content

To Pickle Cucumbers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Trim and wash the cucumbers in salt and water.

  2. Drain the cucumbers and place them into bottles.

  3. Add a little mace, cloves, capsicum, and mustard-seed.

  4. Cover the cucumbers with nearly boiling hot white vinegar.

  5. Cork the bottles immediately.

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. Cucumber + capsicumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,633 recipes

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, clove, capsicum, mustard, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More pickled cucumbers recipes

Sweet 28and Onions 10Oil 8Green 4 See all 231 →

You might also like

FrittersFritters56 recipesCrisp CrackersCrisp Crackers7 recipes