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Cucumber Pickles

A brined cucumber pickle with onions, mustard seeds, celery seed, olive oil, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

makes about 3 gallons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Slice cucumbers and onions quite thin.

  2. Sprinkle about ½ pint of salt between each layer and let stand overnight.

  3. Drain and wash the cucumbers and onions.

Pickle and store

  1. Mix the mustard seeds with the olive oil, then add vinegar.

  2. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers and onions.

  3. Keep in a cool place. Ready to eat in about a week.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle, staying crisp when salted and kept cool.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during the pickling period.
White mustard seed
Contributes a milder, sharper bite alongside the black mustard seed.
Olive oil
Carries the mustard seed flavor and adds richness to the brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives them tang.
Onions
Add sharpness and aroma that mellow as the pickle matures.

The step that matters

Salting the cucumbers and onions overnight. Salt draws water out of the vegetables through osmosis. Draining and washing afterward removes excess salt, and skipping this step leaves the pickles soft and overly salty.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, celery, olive, vinegar. 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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