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Salad

Sour Pickles

Pickles made by layering cucumbers and horseradish, brining with salt and boiling spices with vinegar, then curing for two weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Sour Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Layer cucumbers and horseradish in a large stone jar.

  2. Sprinkle salt over the layers.

  3. Cover with boiling water.

  4. Let stand for 24 hours in the brine.

Spice and pickle

  1. Pour off the brine and rinse the cucumbers in cold water.

  2. Boil the spices and vinegar together.

  3. Pour the hot spice-vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  4. Let the pickles sit for two weeks before using.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickles themselves, becoming crisp-tender and taking on the brine and vinegar flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the pickles during the brining stage.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during brining and pickling.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar mixture.

The step that matters

Pour off the brine and rinse the cucumbers. Rinsing removes excess surface salt so the pickles do not taste harshly salty once the spiced vinegar is added. Thorough draining also keeps the vinegar mixture from being diluted.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, pepper, clove, horse, radish, sugar. 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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