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Green Cucumber Pickles

A simple pickle made by brining cucumbers with salt, mustard seed, red pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cucumbers and pack them closely into glass jars.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of mustard seed, and 1 small red pepper to each quart jar.

Pickle

  1. Fill the jar with good cold vinegar and seal tightly.

  2. Let the pickles stand for two months before using.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

Small green cucumbers
The main vegetable that is packed into the jars and becomes the pickles.
Good cold vinegar
Provides the acidic brine that preserves the cucumbers and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw water from the cucumbers, firming their texture.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter aroma and flavor that develops during the long standing time.

The step that matters

Let the pickles stand for two months before using.. The flavors of the vinegar, salt, and spices need a long time to penetrate the cucumbers. Using them early gives a harsher, less developed taste.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, vinegar. 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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