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Sweet Pickled Cucumbers

A sweet pickle made by brining cucumbers, then soaking in vinegar and sugar with cassia buds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Sweet Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Peel cucumbers to your desired softness.

  2. Soak cucumbers in a weak brine (½ cup salt in water) overnight.

  3. Drain cucumbers.

Cover with vinegar

  1. Cover with vinegar and let stand overnight again.

  2. Drain again.

Make the pickling mixture

  1. Prepare the pickling mixture by combining 1 quart vinegar, 3 pounds sugar, and 1 ounce cassia buds.

  2. Add cucumbers to the mixture.

  3. Store in jars.

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. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + cassiatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + cassiatop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Sugar + cassiatop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable, whose texture softens and firms as peeling and brining change it.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the pickles.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Cassia buds
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Soaking in the weak brine. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and firms their flesh, so the soak is what keeps the pickles crisp rather than limp. Draining well afterward helps the vinegar and syrup absorb evenly.

Swap the cassia

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, 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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