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To Pickle Gerkins, or French Beans

A pickled cucumber recipe using salt, vinegar, spices, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Pickle Gerkins, or French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the gherkins

  1. Mix 2 pounds of salt into 1 gallon of spring water.

  2. Add the gherkins to the saltwater.

  3. Let the gherkins soak for 2 hours.

  4. Drain the gherkins thoroughly.

  5. Place the drained gherkins in a jar.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. In a bell metal pot, combine vinegar, cloves, mace, allspice, mustard seed, horseradish, bay leaves, dill, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling mixture over the gherkins in the jar.

  4. Cover the jar tightly.

  5. Let the jar sit for 24 hours.

Finish and store

  1. Simmer the gherkins over low heat until they turn green, being careful not to boil them.

  2. Cover the gherkins again.

  3. Let them cool.

  4. Seal the jar with a bladder and leather.

  5. Store the sealed jar in a cool, dry place.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Horseradish + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mustard + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Gherkins
Provide the main body and crisp texture of the finished pickle.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the gherkins and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the gherkins and seasons them before pickling.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp aroma and flavour to the pickling liquor.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Simmer the gherkins without boiling. Gentle heat lets the gherkins take on colour and warmth without the skins splitting or the flesh turning soft and mushy, which boiling would cause.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, horseradish, dill):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, horseradish, dill. 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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