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Cucumber Pickles

Cucumber pickles prepared by brining cucumbers with water, vinegar, salt, and spices, then scalding and jarred with cold vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 cucumbers

  1. Wash cucumbers.

  2. Place them in brine made from soft water, cider vinegar, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Soak cucumbers in cold water to freshen them.

Scald and pack

  1. Cover cucumbers with weak vinegar and add grape leaves in a kettle.

  2. Scald cucumbers until they turn green.

  3. Combine pickles and spices in jars, then cover with strong cold vinegar.

  4. For each gallon of vinegar, mix in white mustard seed, stick cinnamon, whole cloves, red peppers, small onions, sugar, mace, and horseradish.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Are the main vegetable that is brined, scalded, and turned into crisp pickles.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and helps them stay firm during brining.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, tangy flavor to the vinegar brine.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Scald cucumbers until they turn green. Scalding in weak vinegar must stop once the cucumbers turn green; overheating softens their texture, while too little heat leaves them unevenly cooked and less firm in the jar.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, cucumber, mustard, cinnamon, clove, 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 cucumber pickles recipes

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

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