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Sweet Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish flavored with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

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 ↓

Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in brine for 48 hours.

  2. Remove cucumbers and soak in fresh water for 3 hours, then drain well.

  3. Pack cucumbers into jars.

Make the syrup and seal

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, and pickling spices; boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers in jars and seal.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 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
Form the pickle itself, softening slightly while brining and keeping a crisp bite after soaking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar, defining the sweet pickle flavour.
White vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during brining, firming their texture.

The step that matters

Soak cucumbers in brine for 48 hours. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and firms them; if the soak is too short the pickles stay soft, and the later fresh-water soak removes excess salt so they are not overly briny.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, 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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