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Preserve

Nonpareil Preserves

Preserved cucumbers sweetened with sugar syrup and flavored with citron, raisins, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 973 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Nonpareil Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and pack

  1. Soak cucumbers in strong brine for 6-7 days.

  2. Wash the cucumbers.

  3. Soak the cucumbers in clear water for 24 hours, changing the water 3-4 times.

  4. Line a metal kettle with grape leaves.

  5. Place the cucumbers inside the kettle, sprinkling some alum on top.

  6. Cover the cucumbers with clear water and vine leaves, then tightly cover the kettle.

Green and stuff

  1. Green the cucumbers as if for pickles without boiling them.

  2. Place the cucumbers in ice water until completely cold.

  3. Slit the cucumbers open on one side.

  4. Remove the seeds with a small knife.

  5. Stuff the cucumbers with a mixture of chopped citron and raisins.

  6. Sew the cucumbers up.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. For every pound of cucumbers, combine 1 pound of sugar and 1 pint of water in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim the syrup thoroughly.

  3. Drop the cucumbers into the syrup and boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the cucumbers from the kettle and place them in the sun on a shallow dish while the syrup boils down.

  5. Add a few slices of ginger root to the syrup.

  6. Return the cucumbers to the syrup and boil for another 5 minutes.

Jar and seal

  1. Transfer the cucumbers to glass jars.

  2. Seal the jars when cool.

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. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Grape + gingertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,037 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cucumber + grapetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Their flesh becomes the preserve, and firmness depends on careful greening and cooling.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, in the thick syrup, helps preserve the cucumbers.
Alum
Helps the cucumber tissue stay firm during soaking and cooking.
Grape leaves
Their tannins help keep the cucumbers crisp and firm.

The step that matters

Green the cucumbers without boiling them. Boiling softens the cucumbers. Greening in a hot, non-boiling liquid and then chilling them in ice water keeps the flesh firm for the later long syrup cooking.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, sugar, raisin, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, sugar, raisin, ginger. 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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