Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
An Excellent Way of Preserving Cucumbers
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cucumbers
Choose the greenest cucumbers, free from seeds.
Put them in strong salt and water, with a cabbage leaf to keep them down.
Tie a paper over them and put them in a warm place until they are yellow.
Wash them and set them over the fire in fresh water, with a very little salt, and another cabbage leaf over them.
Cover very closely, but take care they do not boil.
If they are not a fine green, change the water again, cover them as before, and make them hot.
When they are a good colour, take them off the fire and let them cool.
Cut them in quarters, take out the seeds and pulp, and put them into cold water.
Let them remain for 2 days, changing the water twice each day, to draw out the salt.
Make the syrup and pickle
Put the sugar, with 1/4 pint of water, in a saucepan over the fire; remove the scum as it rises, and add the lemon peel and ginger with the outside scraped off.
When the syrup is tolerably thick, take it off the fire, and when cold, wipe the cucumbers dry, and put them in.
Boil the syrup once in 2 or 3 days for 3 weeks; strengthen it if required, and let it be quite cold before the cucumbers are put in.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 2 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Ginger | 1 tsp grated fresh (2g) | 2 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,154 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cucumbers (in the method)
- Their firm flesh is softened and preserved by the salt and syrup, becoming a crisp-tender sweet pickle.
- Sugar (in the method)
- Sweetens the syrup and, when thick, helps preserve the cucumbers.
- Lemon
- Its peel adds acidity and aroma to the syrup.
- Ginger
- Adds warm aroma and flavour to the syrup.
The step that matters
Greening the cucumbers without boiling. Cucumbers turn colour and soften with heat, so they must be held just below a boil under a close cover. Boiling makes them mushy and can leave them a dull colour, and the salt soak must be rinsed out fully before the syrup, or the pickle will taste too salty.
“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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