Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber dish preserved in vinegar with pepper and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Cut the cucumbers in thick slices, sprinkle salt over them, and let them remain for 24 hours.

  2. The next day, drain them well for 6 hours, put them into a jar, pour boiling vinegar over them, and keep them in a warm place.

Pickle and seal

  1. In a short time, boil up the vinegar again, add pepper and ginger in the above proportion, and instantly cover them up.

  2. Tie them down with bladder, and in a few days they will be fit for use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

11Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
2 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Adds sourness and acidity that flavours the cucumbers and helps preserve them.
Pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Instantly covering the jar after adding the pepper and ginger. Boiling the vinegar and then sealing the jar straight away keeps the aromatics and heat in the liquid, so they infuse the cucumbers rather than escaping as steam.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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 pickled cucumbers recipes

Sweet 28and Onions 10Oil 8Green 4 See all 231 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes