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Cucumber Pickles

A brine of vinegar, spices, and sugar used to pickle cucumbers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cucumbers in the brine.

  2. Put cucumbers in a kettle and cover with vinegar.

  3. Add mustard seed, celery seed, ginger root, onions, garlic, black pepper, cloves, mace, turmeric, red pepper, horseradish, and brown sugar.

Heat and steep

  1. Let boil, then put in a jar and let stand overnight.

  2. Pour the spiced vinegar back into the kettle and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers again.

Rest

  1. Let the pickles sit for a week 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 softens slightly and absorbs the flavour of the spiced vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Brown sugar
Sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and the spices.
Horseradish
Pungent heat that adds sharpness to the spiced vinegar.
Garlic
Pungent aroma that flavours the vinegar and the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers again. The vinegar must be fully boiling so it heats the cucumbers and carries the spices into them. Acidity and heat together help the pickle keep and develop its flavour.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, celery, onion, garlic, 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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