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Green Pickle

A brined cucumber pickle prepared with salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Green Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the pickles

  1. Soak the pickles in a strong brine for three weeks, ensuring the brine is strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Drain the brine.

  3. Pour boiling water over the pickles for three consecutive mornings.

  4. Soak the pickles in cold water for two days, changing the water each morning.

  5. Scald the pickles in a mixture of 2 quarts water and 1 quart vinegar for three mornings.

Layer and soak in vinegar

  1. Layer the pickles in a jar.

  2. Sprinkle powdered alum on each layer.

  3. Pour the weakened vinegar over the pickles.

  4. Pour off the vinegar after the first morning.

  5. Add fresh vinegar each morning for two more days.

Season and finish

  1. Fill jars with the prepared pickles.

  2. Combine 3 pounds brown sugar, 1 tablespoon each of allspice, cinnamon, ginger, and black pepper, along with oil of cloves, celery seed, red pepper, and grated horseradish to season the vinegar.

  3. Pour seasoned boiling vinegar over the pickles.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 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

Pickles
The main food being preserved; the curing and soaking steps change its texture and firmness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sour flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brining stage.
Powdered alum (in the method)
Helps the pickles stay firm and crisp during long soaking.

The step that matters

Pour off the vinegar after the first morning. Vinegar that has already drawn out flavor and firmness from the pickles is weakened, so replacing it with fresh vinegar keeps the acidity strong enough to preserve them and gives a consistent result.

Swap the celery

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

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

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