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Cucumber Pickles

Pickled cucumber gherkins in a sweet and spicy vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gherkins

  1. Wash the gherkins carefully without bruising.

  2. Soak the gherkins overnight in a strong brine of cold water and salt.

  3. Drain the gherkins thoroughly.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Heat the vinegar almost to a boil.

  2. Remove the vinegar from heat.

  3. Add sugar and spices to the vinegar to taste.

  4. Boil the mixture.

Pack and seal

  1. Pour the hot vinegar over the pickles in glass jars, adding some spices to each jar.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Provides the sour base that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Gherkins
The vegetable being pickled, giving the firm, crisp texture of the finished pickles.
White sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon stick
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that develops as the seeds steep in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain the gherkins thoroughly. Water left on the cucumbers dilutes the hot vinegar, weakening the acidity that preserves the pickles and making the brine cloudy and less sharp.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, pepper, mustard, 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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