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Pickled Cucumbers

Pickled cucumbers are cucumbers preserved in a vinegar brine with sugar, spices, and red peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the cucumbers in brine for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. In a pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, horseradish, and red peppers.

  3. Scald the mixture until it is hot.

Pack and seal

  1. Remove the cucumbers from the brine and place them in jars.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  3. Seal the jars tightly.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cinnamon + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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, taking on flavour from the vinegar brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their sharp taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Whole cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma and spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers. The liquid must be hot when poured so the jars seal properly and the pickling mixture stays safe to store. Pouring it cool leaves the seal and preservation less reliable.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish. 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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