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Spiced Cucumber Pickles

Pickled cucumbers flavored with red peppers and spices, sweetened with sugar and preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spiced Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Scald the cucumbers in saltwater for nine minutes.

Make the brine and pack

  1. Combine 1 gallon of cider vinegar with 4 pounds of sugar.

  2. Add red peppers and spices to taste.

  3. Mix well and store in 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 + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle and carry its crisp or soft texture.
Cider vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Red peppers
Adds heat and colour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Scald the cucumbers in saltwater for nine minutes. Heat softens the cucumber's cell walls, so the time in the hot saltwater decides how crisp or soft the pickles end up. Too long makes them mushy, while too short leaves them hard in the centre.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, pepper. 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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