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Pickle for Cucumbers

A brine and vinegar solution preserves cucumbers with spices and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Pickle for Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Dissolve 1 pint of coarse sea salt in 1 gallon of boiling water.

  2. Pour the brine over 100 small cucumbers and let them stand for 24 hours.

Firm and pickle

  1. After 24 hours, pour clear boiling water over the cucumbers with the piece of alum and let stand for another 24 hours.

  2. Prepare boiling vinegar with 1 ounce of stick cinnamon, 6 red peppers, 6 white peppers, 1 head of stripped horseradish, and 1 ounce of cloves in a muslin bag.

  3. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cucumbers and sprinkle with white mustard seed.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cinnamon + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable that is transformed into the pickle, becoming crisp and tangy as it cures.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine, helping preserve and firm the flesh.
Alum
Hardens the cucumber tissue, helping the pickles stay crisp.
Boiling vinegar
Provides the acidity that sours the pickles and helps preserve them.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling water with alum over the cucumbers. Alum is a firming agent that tightens the cucumber tissue, so pickles stay crisp. Using it in the right amount matters, because too much can make the pickles harsh or bitter.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, egg, vinegar, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, egg, vinegar, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish, clove. 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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