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Cucumber Pickles

A method for pickling cucumbers in a salt and vinegar solution with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Wash the cucumbers and pack them in a stone jar.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the cucumbers.

  3. Scald the cucumbers with boiling water until they are covered.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand overnight.

  5. Drain or dry the cucumbers.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the cucumbers into glass jars.

  2. Add red pepper pods, whole black pepper grains, sliced horseradish, and small onions to the jars.

  3. Boil the pure cider vinegar.

  4. Pour the boiled vinegar over the cucumbers to cover them.

  5. Seal the jars.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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 softens and turns crisp-tender through salting and pickling.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming them and helping preserve the pickle.
Pure cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Small onions
Adds savoury flavour that mellows as the pickles stand.

The step that matters

Pour the boiled vinegar over the cucumbers to cover them. The cucumbers must stay fully submerged in acidic vinegar; any exposed part can spoil or grow mould, since the acidity is what keeps the pickles safe.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, horseradish, cider, vinegar. 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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