Skip to main content
Main

Dayton Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe with a spice blend and sweet brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Dayton Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a strong brine with coarse sea salt and let the cucumbers stand in it for 24 hours.

  2. Wash the cucumbers in cold water and let them drain.

Pack and season

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, white mustard seed, whole cloves, whole allspice, whole black pepper, stick cinnamon, white ginger, horseradish, small green peppers, whole red peppers, small white onions, and garlic.

  2. Pack the cucumbers into jars alternately with the mixed ingredients.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming crisp-tender and firm after brining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during brining, firming them and preserving the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and spices and helps preserve the pickle.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during the long pickling period.
Small white onions
Add mild sweetness and texture that absorbs the spiced sweet-sour liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that deepens as the pickle matures.

The step that matters

Brining the cucumbers. The cucumbers must stand in a strong salt brine for the full 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the cucumber cells, which firms the flesh and helps keep it from softening, and a weak brine leaves them soft and prone to spoilage.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, mustard, clove, allspice, pepper, cinnamon, ginger):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, mustard, clove, allspice, pepper, cinnamon, ginger. 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

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes