Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Gherkins or Young Cucumbers

A method for pickling young cucumbers or gherkins using salt and boiling vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins or Young Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Puncture the cucumbers with a needle.

  2. Sprinkle dry salt over them.

  3. Pour off the dissolved salt.

  4. Add fresh salt.

  5. Let the fresh salt sit for 2 days.

  6. Remove the cucumbers and let them drain on a cloth.

  7. Wipe the cucumbers clean.

Pickle and jar

  1. Place them in jars.

  2. Pour boiling vinegar over them with ginger and black pepper.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Young cucumbers
Provide the crisp, firm body that the brine and vinegar transform into pickles.
Dry salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, firming the flesh before pickling.
Boiling vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the vinegar.
Black pepper
Adds mild pungency and aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Puncture the cucumbers before salting. Piercing the skin lets salt and vinegar penetrate the flesh evenly, so the pickle cures through rather than staying firm outside and raw inside.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper. 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.

You might also like

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