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Cucumber Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish flavored with mustard seed, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, and sweetened with brown sugar and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak the cucumbers in strong saltwater overnight.

  2. Rinse the cucumbers and place them in a jar.

  3. Pour scalding vinegar over the cucumbers daily for three days.

Spice and sweeten

  1. On the third day, place the mustard seed, allspice, cloves, broken cinnamon, and black pepper in a thin muslin bag.

  2. Boil the spice bag in fresh vinegar for one hour.

  3. Add red pepper pods and horseradish strips among the pickles.

  4. Ensure the vinegar covers the pickles.

  5. Add brown sugar and let it scald.

  6. Pour the scalded vinegar over the pickles.

  7. Leave the spice bag in the jar.

  8. When ready to store, pour in molasses gradually.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 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

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, bulk body of the pickle that absorbs the brine and vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickles.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, rich sweetness and a deep, treacly flavour.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour as they steep in the hot vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring scalding vinegar over the cucumbers daily. Vinegar that is not hot enough or is applied irregularly will not fully penetrate and acidify the cucumbers, leaving them soft or unpreserved. Repeated hot applications over three days gradually draw out brine and firm the pickles while building acidity.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, allspice, clove, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish. 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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