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Saure Salzgurken

A pickled cucumber dish preserved in a salted brine with vine, cherry, walnut leaves, and dill.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Saure Salzgurken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in water for 12 hours, then wipe them dry.

Layer the barrel

  1. In a clean small barrel or unglazed crock, place a layer of vine leaves, sour cherry leaves, and walnut leaves at the bottom.

  2. Arrange cucumbers closely together, adding a leaf or two between them, and cover with wild cherry leaves.

  3. Repeat layering cucumbers with sprigs of green dill and walnut leaves, topping each layer with vine and cherry leaves until the vessel is full.

Brine and store

  1. Make a weak brine by dissolving a handful of coarse sea salt in a gallon of water.

  2. Pour the brine over the cucumbers, ensuring they are completely covered.

  3. Place a cover and weight on top, and store in a warm 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. Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Walnut + dilltop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cucumber + sour cherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sour cherry + dilltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Are the main vegetable that becomes crisp and sour as they ferment in the brine.
Coarse sea salt
Dissolved in water to make the brine that preserves the cucumbers and controls fermentation.
Green dill
Adds aroma and fresh herbal flavour to the pickles.

The step that matters

Keeping the cucumbers fully submerged. Cucumbers exposed to air can soften and grow mold, because oxygen allows spoilage microbes to thrive. Keeping every piece under the brine, with a weight on top, limits contact with air and helps the lactic fermentation proceed safely.

Swap the sour cherry

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Sour cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, walnut, dill. 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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