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Ripe Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, sugar, spices, and raisins or grapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare the cucumbers and remove the cores.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in salt water for 2 days.

  3. Remove the cucumbers from the brine and pour boiling water over them.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand overnight.

Make the pickle

  1. Pour off the water and prepare the pickle mixture.

  2. In a pot, combine the vinegar, hot water, sugar, spices, and raisins or grapes.

  3. Scald the mixture and boil until the cucumbers are easily penetrated with a fork.

  4. Use as little vinegar as possible to boil the cucumbers, then pour the remaining vinegar over them.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle; the salt brine draws out water so they firm up.
Sharp vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, preserved tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the spiced syrup.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
Raisins or ripe grapes
Add fruity sweetness and a soft, chewy note to the pickle.

The step that matters

Boiling the cucumbers until fork-tender. Boil only until a fork passes through easily. Overboiling breaks down the cucumber's cell walls, leaving the pickles soft and mushy rather than firm.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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