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German Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using brine, bay leaves, dill seed, mustard seed, horseradish, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

German Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cucumbers in brine for 24 hours.

Pack and seal

  1. Layer the cucumbers in a jar with bay leaves, dill seed, mustard seed, and horseradish.

  2. Boil the vinegar and sugar together.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  4. Cover the jars and seal while hot.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  3. Dill + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Dill + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 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 main body of the pickles and stay crisp or firm after brining and pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the sweet-sour flavour.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and heat that mellows during pickling.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers. The vinegar must be brought to a boil with the sugar so the mixture is hot enough to help seal the jars and keep the cucumbers safe to store. Pouring it cool or lukewarm weakens that protection and can leave the pickles less stable.

Swap the dill

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Dillthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, horseradish, vinegar, sugar. 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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