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Cucumber Fickle

A quick pickled cucumber recipe using horseradish, pepper pods, coarse sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumber Fickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover cucumbers with boiling water and let stand for 10 minutes.

  2. Wipe cucumbers dry and place them in self-sealing jars.

Pack and seal

  1. Add a small piece of horseradish, a few pepper pods, and a pinch of coarse sea salt.

  2. Heat vinegar until hot but not boiling, then cover the pickles with it.

  3. Seal the jars while hot.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Radish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together382 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Small cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, which soften slightly and take on the brine's flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy taste.
Horse radish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and heat that flavours the brine and cucumbers.

The step that matters

Heat vinegar until hot but not boiling. Vinegar that is hot enough helps the brine penetrate the cucumbers and seal the jars, while boiling can drive off acidity and aroma and make the pickles soft.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Cabbagefits about as well
  4. Broccolifits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, pepper, 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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