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Pickled Cucumbers

A brined cucumber and pepper pickle made with sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, turmeric, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Let cucumbers stand in brine overnight, then drain.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Mix sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, ground turmeric, and vinegar in a pot and bring to a boil for a few minutes.

Pickle and can

  1. Add drained cucumbers and red pepper to pot, let stand for 5 minutes, then can the mixture.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and stay crisp-firm when brined and then heated in the vinegar mixture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the mixture and gives the pickles their tart flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and helps round out the flavour.
Red pepper
Adds colour, mild sweetness and a little crunch to the finished pickles.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that infuses into the vinegar during simmering.

The step that matters

Let cucumbers stand in brine overnight, then drain. The overnight brine draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them. Draining well matters because excess water dilutes the vinegar mixture and can leave the pickles soft and watery.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Celerythe original

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