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Cucumber Pickles

A method for pickling cucumbers with brine, vinegar, alum, spices, peppers, grapes, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cover cucumbers with weak brine.

  2. Let cucumbers stand for 24 hours.

  3. Remove cucumbers.

  4. Wipe off any black specks.

  5. Place cucumbers in a brass kettle.

  6. Add vinegar to cover cucumbers.

  7. Add a small lump of alum.

  8. Heat slowly, stirring occasionally until scalded.

  9. Transfer cucumbers to a crock.

Make the spiced vinegar and pickle

  1. Let cucumbers stand for 24 hours.

  2. Add sliced green peppers.

  3. Tie spices in a muslin bag.

  4. Scald the muslin bag with vinegar in a porcelain kettle.

  5. Drain the first vinegar from cucumbers.

  6. Pour the cooled spiced vinegar over cucumbers.

  7. Add green grapes and horseradish when cold.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 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

Small green cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the brine and spiced vinegar to become crisp and flavoured.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, slightly bitter flavour to the spiced vinegar.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the spiced vinegar.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring the spiced vinegar over cooled cucumbers. The vinegar must be cooled before it is poured over the cucumbers, because hot liquid would soften the cucumbers and cause them to lose their crispness.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, celery. 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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