Skip to main content
Main

Quick Pickles

A quick cucumber pickle made by boiling cucumbers in salted water, then brining them in vinegar, molasses, cloves, and cinnamon.

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

Quick Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Wash the cucumbers.

  2. Place them in a porcelain kettle.

  3. Cover the cucumbers with cold water.

  4. Add the salt.

  5. Heat gradually.

  6. Boil for five minutes.

  7. Drain off the water.

  8. Add the vinegar.

Spice and pickle

  1. In a separate pot, combine the vinegar, molasses, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Boil the mixture for five minutes.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers in an earthen or stone dish.

  5. Cover tightly.

  6. Let cool until cold.

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. Cucumber + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together874 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cucumber + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the body of the pickle and carry its crisp, firm texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth, and dark color.
Cloves
Contribute warm, pungent aroma to the spiced liquid.
Cinnamon
Contributes sweet, warm aroma that rounds out the spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture and cover tightly. Pouring the boiling spiced vinegar over the cucumbers while it is hot lets the liquid penetrate and carry the spice flavors into the cucumbers. Covering the dish keeps the heat and aroma in as it cools, so the flavor soaks in evenly.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, molasses, clove, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, molasses, clove, cinnamon. 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

Molasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes