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Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber recipe using cucumbers, onions, celery, sugar, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cut cucumbers lengthwise into 5 or 6 slices and soak in ice water for 3 hours.

Pack the jars

  1. Place slices of white onions in jars.

  2. Fill jars with cucumbers and a few stalks of celery.

  3. Invert jars. Let them drain well.

Add the brine

  1. Pour boiling vinegar over the contents. Add 1 cup sugar and ¾ cup coarse sea salt for each quart of vinegar.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, firm body of the pickle that the brine penetrates.
White onions
Add sharp, savory flavor that mellows as the pickles sit.
Celery stalks
Add a fresh, grassy crunch and aroma to the packed jars.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the acid that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Soaking the cucumbers in ice water. Cold soaking firms the cucumber flesh by helping its cell walls stay rigid, so the pickles stay crisp rather than soft after the hot brine is poured over them.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, sugar, 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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