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Cucumbers Greened

A pickled cucumber preserved in alum, vinegar, sugar, and spices, kept green by grape leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumbers Greened

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Place cucumbers in strong brine as soon as they are gathered.

  2. Drain the cucumbers when enough have accumulated.

  3. Line a kettle with young grape leaves and add the cucumbers, discarding any soft ones.

  4. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of alum for every gallon of cucumbers and add a little water.

  5. Cover closely and steam for several hours, ensuring they do not boil.

  6. Once sufficiently green, pack cucumbers in stone jars.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour boiling vinegar over the cucumbers, adding 1 cup of sugar, whole peppers, 1 teaspoon of whole cloves, allspice, and a little celery seed.

  2. Heat the vinegar weekly for 4 weeks, covering the jar tightly and placing a weight on the cucumbers to keep them submerged.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main body of the pickle, which firms and turns green during steaming.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during steaming and pickling.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar, giving a sweet-sour flavour.

The step that matters

Steam without boiling. If the cucumbers boil, they soften and turn limp, losing the firm texture the pickle depends on. Gentle steaming under a closed cover keeps them firm while the green colour develops.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Grapethe original

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