Skip to main content
Main

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
Jump to recipe ↓
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 brine and pour

  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
Provide the crisp, watery vegetable base that the pickling liquid flavours and penetrates.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and depth.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that mellows during pickling.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Salting the cucumbers overnight and draining them thoroughly. Salt draws water out of the cucumber through osmosis, so the pieces stay firmer and dilute the brine less. Skipping the drain leaves extra water in the jar, which weakens the vinegar brine and dulls the crunch.

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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesHorseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes