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Pickles

Pickles made from cucumbers, salted, then boiled with cider vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Gather and wash cucumbers, then layer them in a container, sprinkling salt between layers.

  2. Ensure there is always a layer of undissolved salt at the bottom.

  3. When ready to make pickles, take cucumbers from the brine and place them in a stone jar.

  4. Cover cucumbers with boiling water and let them sit for 24 hours.

  5. Drain and cover again with boiling water, letting them sit until the next day.

Spice and pickle

  1. For every 3 quarts of cucumbers, use 1 quart of cider vinegar.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon each of whole cloves, allspice, peppercorns, mace, celery seed, and 2 teaspoons of mustard seed in a muslin bag.

  3. Add 2 pieces of ginger-root and 2 tiny red pepper pods to the vinegar.

  4. Boil the vinegar with spices for 1 minute and pour over the cucumbers.

  5. If necessary, add more boiling vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  6. Place a horseradish leaf on top of the jar; pickles will be ready in a few days.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the body of the pickle, becoming crisp and firm as they are brined.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brine.
Best cider vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Keep a layer of undissolved salt at the bottom. Salt must stay saturated in the brine so the cucumbers keep drawing out water and firming. If the brine weakens, the cucumbers can soften and spoil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, horseradish, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, celery):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horseradish, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, celery. 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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