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Cucumber Pickles

A method for preserving cucumbers in a vinegar brine with salt, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Wash the cucumbers and pack them in an earthen jar.

  2. Cover the cucumbers with boiling water and let them stand overnight.

  3. Pour off the water and prepare the same quantity of vinegar by boiling it.

  4. Add 1 cup of salt and ½ cup of sugar to the boiling vinegar.

Pickle

  1. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  2. In two weeks, boil the pickles again if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cucumber + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,112 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable that becomes crisp-tender and takes on the pickling flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw water out of the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Cover the cucumbers with boiling water and let them stand overnight. Hot water softens the cucumber skins and begins drawing out moisture, helping the cucumbers take up the brine evenly and stay firmer later.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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