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To Pickle Cucumbers

A method for pickling cucumbers with spices and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in their original water.

  2. Pour the water over the cucumbers.

  3. Simmer on low heat for 4-5 hours until they turn a pretty green.

  4. Remove and drain on a fine sieve.

Fill the cucumbers

  1. Add horse-radish, mustard seeds, garlic, peppercorns, and sliced green cucumbers.

  2. Fill the cucumbers with this mixture.

  3. Sew the cut pieces back on with a large needle and thread.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil vinegar with mace, cloves, ginger, long pepper, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, mustard seeds, garlic, and horse-radish for 5 minutes.

  2. Pour the hot pickle over the cucumbers.

  3. Seal tightly and store for use.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the body of the pickle and take on colour during the long simmer.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it a sharp taste.
Garlic
Adds pungent flavour that softens and mellows in the hot vinegar.
Horse-radish
Adds sharp heat to the pickling liquid and the filling.
Mustard seeds
Add a sharp, pungent flavour to the filling and the pickle.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the hot pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer on low heat for 4-5 hours. Gentle, low heat lets the cucumbers firm and take up colour slowly. Higher heat would soften them too fast, so they could break down or split.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horse, radish, mustard, garlic, vinegar, clove. 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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