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Ripe Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber recipe using salt brine, vinegar, sugar, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare the cucumbers and remove the cores.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in salt water for 2 days.

  3. Remove the cucumbers from the brine and pour boiling water over them. Let the cucumbers stand overnight.

  4. Pour off the water.

Make the pickle mixture

  1. Prepare the pickle mixture. For each quart of vinegar, mix with ½ cup hot water, 2 cups sugar, and the spices.

  2. Add the raisins or grapes.

Cook and finish

  1. Scald and boil until the cucumbers are easily pierced with a fork. Use minimal vinegar for boiling.

  2. Pour the remaining vinegar over the cucumbers when done.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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

Large yellow cucumbers
Form the pickles' main body, which softens and takes on the spiced flavour during cooking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during soaking, firming them and seasoning them.
Sharp vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tangy bite.
2 cups sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and rounds out the flavour.
Raisins or grapes
Add pockets of sweetness and extra juiciness to the finished pickles.

The step that matters

Cooking until the cucumbers are easily pierced with a fork. Cooking too briefly leaves the cucumbers firm and under-flavoured, while overcooking makes them soft and mushy. Testing with a fork shows when the flesh has softened enough to absorb the syrup.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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