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Coxgkess Pickles

A pickle recipe using cucumbers, salt, vinegar, spices, sugar, peppers, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, celery seed, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Coxgkess Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Wash the cucumbers and sprinkle them with 1 pint of fine salt.

  2. Pour boiling hot water over the cucumbers to cover them and let them stand for 48 hours.

  3. Remove the cucumbers from the brine, wipe them dry, and place them in jars.

  4. Pour scalding hot vinegar over the cucumbers along with any spices you like.

  5. If the vinegar becomes tasteless, replace it with fresh vinegar before using.

Brine and vinegar soak

  1. Make a brine with cold water and salt strong enough to float an egg for additional flavor.

  2. Heat the brine and pour it over the cucumbers, letting them stand for 24 hours.

  3. After 24 hours, remove the cucumbers and wipe them dry.

  4. Scald vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, letting them stand for another 24 hours.

Finish and pickle

  1. Pour off the vinegar and add 1 quart of brown sugar, 2 large green peppers, ½ pint of white mustard, ginger-root, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and celery seed to fresh vinegar.

  2. Scald these ingredients together and pour boiling hot over the cucumbers.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Main vegetable that becomes the pickle, firmed and flavored by the brine and vinegar.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brining stages.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the cucumbers and sharpens the flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard
Contributes pungent, tangy flavor to the pickling liquid.
Green peppers
Add vegetable body and mild, fresh bitterness to the pickle.

The step that matters

Heating the brine and vinegar before pouring. Scalding the vinegar and spiced liquid is what carries the flavors into the cucumbers and helps the liquid penetrate. Vinegar that has gone tasteless from repeated use will not preserve or flavor the pickles well, so it must be replaced.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, allspice. 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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