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Yellow Cucumber Pickles

Pickled cucumbers preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Yellow Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in cold strong vinegar.

  2. Scald the cucumbers in strong vinegar.

  3. Place cucumbers in a stone jar.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a separate container, mix the vinegar with mustard seed, ground mustard, white ginger, pepper, allspice, mace, cloves, turmeric, horseradish, garlic, salt, celery seed, lemons, and brown sugar.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour the spiced vinegar over the cucumbers in the jar.

  2. Seal the jar while hot and store in a cool place.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 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

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickles.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent heat and a sharp, mustardy flavour to the brine.
Turmeric
Gives the pickles their yellow colour and a mild earthy flavour.
Celery seed
Adds a savoury, aromatic celery flavour to the pickling spices.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, ginger, pepper, allspice, clove, turmeric):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, ginger, pepper, allspice, clove, turmeric. 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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