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Cucumber Pickles

A brine pickle of cucumbers flavored with sugar, spices, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Place cucumbers in a cotton bag and tie the bag.

  2. Submerge the bag in brine for 6 weeks.

  3. Soak cucumbers in fresh water for 24 hours.

  4. Wipe cucumbers dry.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil cucumbers in cold vinegar until easily pierced with a straw.

  2. Remove cucumbers and discard the vinegar.

  3. Boil enough cider vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  4. Stir in sugar, black pepper, and sliced onions.

  5. Add mace, allspice, cloves, and red ginger to the boiling vinegar.

  6. Mix ground mustard and turmeric with cold vinegar to make a paste.

  7. Stir the paste into the boiling vinegar.

  8. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers.

  9. Sprinkle with white mustard seed.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cucumber + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together501 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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; long brining and soaking firm and cure them before pickling.
Brine
Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and firms their texture during the long soak.
Vinegar
Acid preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and body to the pickling liquid.
Ground mustard
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Submerging the cucumbers in brine for 6 weeks. Brine that is too weak lets the cucumbers soften or spoil, while a strong brine draws water out and firms the flesh. Keeping the bag fully submerged prevents exposed cucumbers from spoiling and going soft.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, egg, vinegar, sugar, pepper, onion, allspice. 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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