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Pickled Cucumbers

A cucumber pickle made by soaking cucumbers in brine, rinsing, soaking in alum water, then cooking in a vinegar‑sugar‑cinnamon‑mace‑pepper syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare and quarter the cucumbers, then remove the seeds and clean them.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in strong brine for nine days, stirring daily.

  3. After nine days, rinse the cucumbers in clear water for one day.

  4. Soak the cucumbers in alum water overnight.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Prepare a syrup with 1 pint of cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, broken cinnamon bark, mace, and pepper.

  2. Cook the cucumbers in the syrup until tender.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Cucumber + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together874 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 the brining and pickling transform into a firm, crisp pickle.
Strong brine
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them over the nine-day soak, firming the flesh.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during the long soaking and cooking.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cooking the cucumbers in the syrup until tender. Cook only until the pieces are just tender. Overcooking softens the cell walls too far, so the pickles turn mushy, and the firmness built up during the brining and alum soak is lost.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, pepper. 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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