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Pickled Cucumbers

Pickled cucumbers preserved in a vinegar and spice mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place small cucumbers in jars.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Boil vinegar, salt, and black pepper together.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix cold vinegar with curry powder, corn starch, and mustard.

  3. Stir this mixture into the hot vinegar until it thickens.

Fill the jars

  1. Pour the thickened mixture 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.

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).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Small cucumbers
The main vegetable, which soaks up the tangy brine as it pickles.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps keep it stable.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid so it clings to the cucumbers instead of running off.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and a little body to the brine.

The step that matters

Stirring the starch into the hot vinegar. Corn starch only thickens fully when heated, so it must be well mixed into the cold vinegar first to avoid lumps. Stir steadily in the hot vinegar until it visibly thickens before pouring.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, corn, 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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