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Cucumber Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish made with vinegar, water, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Salt the cucumbers in layers and let them sit overnight.

  2. The next morning, drain and wash the cucumbers.

  3. Scald the cucumbers in 2 pints of water and 1 pint of vinegar.

  4. Pour off the liquid and place the cucumbers in a kettle.

Cook the pickles

  1. Add the mixed spices in a bag, brown sugar, vinegar, and water to the kettle.

  2. Cook until tender.

Seal

  1. Seal in jars.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  3. Cucumber + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,112 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Salting draws out moisture, and the cucumbers become the crisp-tender body of the pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickles their sharp, tangy flavor and helps preserve them.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mixed spices
Provide aroma and flavor as they steep in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Salt the cucumbers in layers overnight. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers through osmosis. Removing that water firms the flesh, so the pickles stay firmer through the later cooking.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberthe original
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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