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Cucumber Pickles

Cucumbers are pickled in a sweet vinegar brine with pepper, left to mature for several days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the cucumbers

  1. Make a brine that will float an egg or a potato.

  2. Add the cucumbers to the brine and leave them for 3 to 4 days.

  3. Soak the cucumbers in fresh water for several days to remove excess salt.

Make and store the pickles

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of vinegar (add water if sharp) with 1 cup of sugar and 1 California green pepper.

  2. Slice the cucumbers lengthwise.

  3. Add the sliced cucumbers to the pot and heat thoroughly.

  4. Store the pickles in a convenient vessel.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cucumber + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,112 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

Cucumbers
Form the pickles' main body, and they absorb salt and vinegar flavor during curing and heating.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during brining, firming them and seasoning the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Soak to remove excess salt. Brining leaves cucumbers very salty, and skipping or shortening the freshwater soak leaves the finished pickles too salty to eat comfortably.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper. 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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