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German Pickles

A preserved cucumber pickle made with salt, vinegar, mustard seeds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

German Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut cucumbers lengthwise, removing seeds.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 12 hours.

  3. Strain and thoroughly dry cucumbers with a cloth.

Cure and pickle

  1. Cover cucumbers with cold vinegar and let stand for 2 weeks.

  2. Pour off vinegar, dry cucumbers, and place in a jar with mustard seeds and spices.

  3. Boil sufficient vinegar to cover cucumbers and pour it over them warm.

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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main body of the pickle, which firms and turns crisp-tender during salting and brining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers through osmosis, firming them and concentrating flavor before pickling.
Vinegar
Acidifies the cucumbers, preserving them and giving the sharp, tangy flavor of the pickle.
Mustard seeds
Add a pungent, slightly bitter flavor and crunch that contributes to the pickle's character.

The step that matters

Drying the cucumbers before covering them with vinegar. Thorough drying removes surface water that would dilute the vinegar and weaken the acid penetration, so the pickle stays firm and preserves well.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard. 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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