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Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber dish preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak small cucumbers in a strong brine for 48 hours.

  2. Drain the brine and wash the cucumbers in cold water.

  3. Place butter-bean leaves in the bottom of a kettle and add the cucumbers.

  4. Cover with water mixed with dissolved alum, then cover with more leaves.

  5. Simmer slowly until the cucumbers are green.

  6. Drain the cucumbers.

Pickle and finish

  1. Boil vinegar with ginger, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, celery-seed, and small onions.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the cucumbers.

  3. Simmer for a few minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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

Small cucumbers
Form the body of the pickle, becoming firm and green as they are cooked and soaked.
Strong brine
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp flavor.
Alum
Hardens the cucumber tissue so it stays crisp through the simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until the cucumbers are green. Cooking too hard or too long can soften the cucumbers into mush. Gentle heat firms the tissue and sets the green colour, and the alum helps the flesh stay crisp.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, ginger, allspice, clove, cinnamon, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, ginger, allspice, clove, cinnamon, 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.

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