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Pickled Cucumbers

A vinegar-based cucumber pickle with sugar, spices, and aromatics, simmered until tender and stored for a week.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, mustard, celery seed, white ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, green pepper, lemons, horseradish, onions, and cucumbers in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until the cucumbers are tender.

  3. Let the pickles cool, then store them in a jar. They will be ready for use in about a week.

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 + cinnamontop 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds depth of flavor.
Cucumbers
The main vegetable; boiling softens them so they absorb the spiced vinegar.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body that soften and flavor the brine during boiling.

The step that matters

Boil until the cucumbers are tender. Boiling softens the cucumber and lets the hot vinegar and spices penetrate it. Stopping too early leaves the cucumbers firm and under-flavored, while overcooking turns them mushy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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