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Small Cucumber Pickles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Small Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a brine by dissolving the salt in the water and heating it until boiling.

  2. Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Remove the cucumbers, rinse them, and pour a boiling hot solution of half vinegar and half water over them, with a walnut-sized lump of alum dissolved in it.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand until scum rises, about 2 to 3 days, then rinse and wipe them.

  5. In clean jars, combine the cider vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

  6. Boil the mixture for a few minutes, then pour it hot over the cucumbers in the jars.

  7. Layer horseradish between the cucumbers to help preserve them.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, allspice, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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