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Sour Cucumber Pickles

Cucumbers pickled in a strong brine with alum and boiled cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Sour Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Make a strong brine.

  2. Steep cucumbers in the brine overnight.

  3. Add alum to the brine to harden the pickles.

Pack and seal

  1. Drain the cucumbers thoroughly.

  2. Pack the cucumbers tightly in jars.

  3. Pour boiled cider vinegar over the cucumbers.

  4. Seal the jars.

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

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

  2. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Cucumber + cidertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together572 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
The main vegetable, which becomes firm and crisp as it pickles.
Alum
Helps firm the cucumbers so the pickles keep their crunch.
Boiled cider vinegar
Adds sourness and acidity that flavours and preserves the pickles.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumbers thoroughly. Water left from the brine dilutes the vinegar, lowering its acidity and weakening the pickle's flavour and preservation, so the cucumbers should be well drained before packing.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar. 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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