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Ripe Cucumber Pickle

A pickled cucumber dish made with cucumbers, salt, vinegar, sugar, spices, and raisins or grapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 them in salt water for 2 days, then remove the cucumbers from the brine.

  3. Pour boiling water over them and let them stand overnight.

  4. Drain the water.

Make and pour the pickle

  1. Prepare the pickle by combining 1 quart of sharp vinegar with 1 pint of hot water, 2 cups of sugar, and the spices.

  2. Add the raisins or grapes.

  3. Scald the mixture.

  4. Boil until the cucumbers are easily penetrated with a fork, using minimal vinegar for boiling.

  5. 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

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and firm as they soak and boil.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during the brine soak, firming their texture.
Sharp vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the flavour of the pickle.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil until the cucumbers are easily penetrated with a fork. Boiling softens the cucumbers enough to take up the spiced syrup, but overcooking turns them mushy. Testing with a fork shows when they are tender yet still hold their shape.

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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