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Green Pickled Cucumbers

A preserved cucumber dish flavored with vinegar, sugar, spices, and alum, left to mature for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg and soak the cucumbers for 3 weeks.

  2. Drain the salt water.

  3. Soak the cucumbers in cold water for 24 hours.

  4. Line a kettle with grape leaves.

  5. Layer the cucumbers with more grape leaves in between.

  6. Cover the cucumbers with leaves.

Pickle and seal

  1. Pour a mixture of vinegar and water over them, adding a lump of alum.

  2. Heat the vinegar and water mixture until hot but not boiling.

  3. Cool the mixture.

  4. Prepare the vinegar by boiling it with sugar, black pepper, cloves, allspice, mace, horseradish, red pepper, and mustard seed.

  5. Pour the vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  6. Seal tightly.

  7. Let them sit for a few 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 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
Form the pickle itself, becoming crisp and firm as they cure in brine and vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Heat the vinegar mixture until hot but not boiling. Boiling the vinegar and water can soften the cucumbers and drive off acidity, so keeping it just below a boil helps the pickles stay firm while still warming the brine enough to penetrate.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, horse. 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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