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Pickled Cucumbers

A vinegar-based pickle with cucumbers, 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 until the cucumbers are tender.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then store it in a jar.

  4. Allow to pickle for about a week before using.

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

Cucumbers
Are the main vegetable being pickled, softened by boiling and flavoured by the spiced vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle, and carries the spices into the cucumbers.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharp vinegar.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury body that softens and absorbs the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until the cucumbers are tender. Boiling softens the cucumbers enough to take up the spiced vinegar, but overcooking makes them mushy. Stop once they are just tender so they keep some bite.

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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