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Ripe Cucumber Pickles

Pickled cucumbers prepared with sugar, vinegar, spices, and raisins, soaked in salt water and boiled in a spiced solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Ripe Cucumber Pickles

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare the cucumbers and scrape out the seeds.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in salt water for 2 days, then remove them from the brine.

  3. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers and let them stand overnight.

  4. Pour off the water.

Make the pickling solution

  1. Prepare the pickling solution: in a pot, combine vinegar, hot water, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, black pepper, nutmeg, and raisins or grapes.

  2. Scald the mixture.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the mixture until the cucumbers are easily penetrated with a fork, using minimal vinegar for boiling.

  2. Pour the remaining vinegar over the cucumbers when done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 soften as they cook until a fork pierces them easily.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent spice aroma to the pickling liquid.
Raisins or ripe grapes
Add fruity sweetness and body to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until the cucumbers are easily penetrated with a fork. Cooking softens the cucumber's firm tissue so it becomes tender and absorbs the spiced vinegar. Stopping too early leaves them firm and under-flavored, while overcooking turns them mushy.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, pepper, nutmeg. 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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