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Cucumber Pickles

Cucumber pickles made with brine, vinegar, sugar, peppers, mustard, ginger, spices, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine and soak

  1. Make a strong brine and heat it until boiling hot.

  2. Pour the brine over the cucumbers and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Remove the cucumbers and wipe them dry.

Vinegar and spice

  1. Scald the weak vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, letting them stand for another 24 hours.

  2. Pour off the vinegar.

  3. Add 1 quart of fresh vinegar, brown sugar, green peppers, white mustard, ginger root, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and celery seed. Scald the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture boiling hot over the pickles.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Cucumbers
Form the pickles themselves, becoming crisp and firm as they soak in brine and vinegar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their sour bite.
White mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that rounds out the spice blend.
Green peppers
Add mild vegetal flavour and crunch to the pickling mixture.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture before pouring it over the pickles. Heating the vinegar and sugar mixture to boiling dissolves the sugar and helps drive off air, so the hot liquid penetrates and preserves the cucumbers effectively.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, allspice. 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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