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Congkess Pickles

Pickles made by salting cucumbers, soaking in brine, then preserving in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Congkess Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle 1 pint of fine salt over the cucumbers.

  3. Pour boiling hot water over the cucumbers to cover them.

  4. Let them stand for 48 hours.

  5. Remove the cucumbers from the brine and wipe them dry.

Pack and store

  1. Place them in jars and pour scalding hot vinegar over them along with any spices you like.

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

  3. Keep the jars tightly covered.

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 + 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
Form the main body of the pickles and absorb the brine and vinegar flavour.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and helps firm their texture during brining.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their tang.

The step that matters

Let them stand for 48 hours. The salt and water brine must draw moisture out of the cucumbers and season them evenly. Too short a stand leaves them soft and under-seasoned.

“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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