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Spanish Pickle

A pickled cucumber dish seasoned with vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Spanish Pickle

Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Spanish Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cut cucumbers into pieces about ½ inch thick.

  2. Layer cucumber pieces with coarse sea salt and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain the cucumbers thoroughly.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, cloves, ginger, mustard seed, celery seed, mustard, brown sugar, turmeric, horseradish, and red peppers.

  2. Boil the mixture and pour it over the cucumbers.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Make up the bulk of the pickle and provide its crisp, fresh texture once salted and drained.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers overnight, firming them and reducing excess moisture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth to the brine.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that carries through the hot brine.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cucumbers thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers, but any left on them dilutes the vinegar brine and weakens its acidity and preserving effect, so the cucumbers should be drained well before the hot brine is poured over them.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, clove, ginger, mustard, sugar, turmeric. 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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