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Yellow Cucumber Pickles

Pickled yellow cucumbers with vinegar, sugar, red peppers, mustard seed, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Yellow Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel the cucumbers.

  2. Cut them lengthwise.

  3. Remove the seeds.

  4. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  5. Let them stand overnight.

  6. Drain the cucumbers.

  7. Scald them with boiling water.

  8. Let them stand for about 4 hours.

Make the syrup and pack the jars

  1. Boil the vinegar and sugar together.

  2. Add a portion of the cucumbers.

  3. Boil until clear.

  4. Place the cucumbers into jars.

  5. Add more cucumbers until all are used.

  6. Boil until all cucumbers are used.

Pack and seal

  1. Chop the red peppers.

  2. Add them along with the mustard seed to the jars.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers in the jars.

  4. Seal the jars.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow cucumbers
Provide the main body of the pickle, and salting and draining firm them up for a crisp bite.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Sweetens the brine and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Red peppers
Add mild sweetness, color, and a little fresh flavor to the jars.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, warm aroma and a pungent flavor to the pickle.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumbers after salting and standing. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers by osmosis. If they are not drained well, excess liquid dilutes the vinegar brine and the pickles can turn soft and watery.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

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