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To Mango Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber recipe with spices, vinegar, and alum for preservation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Mango Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Soak

  1. Soak cucumbers in salt and water for 8 days.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with mace, cloves, allspice, ginger, pepper, horseradish, garlic, and mustard seed.

  2. Line a kettle with green leaves and sprinkle with alum.

  3. Pour the spiced vinegar over the cucumbers.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable, which becomes firm and crisp as it pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that carries through the brine.
Garlic
Adds a pungent aroma that infuses the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, slightly bitter bite to the spiced vinegar.
Alum
Helps keep the cucumbers firm and gives them a green colour.

The step that matters

Soaking the cucumbers in salt and water for 8 days. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and firms their flesh. Soaking for the full time lets the salt penetrate evenly, so the cucumbers stay crisp rather than soft once the spiced vinegar is poured over them.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, clove, allspice, ginger, pepper, horseradish, garlic):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, clove, allspice, ginger, pepper, horseradish, garlic. 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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