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Cucumber Pickles

A method for making cucumber pickles using salt, vinegar, alum, sugar, spices, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Dissolve the salt in boiling water enough to cover the cucumbers.

  2. Let the cucumbers soak overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain and wipe the cucumbers.

Make and pour the pickling liquid

  1. Combine the spices with the vinegar and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  3. Add pieces of horseradish to the mixture (not too much).

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 softens in brine and takes on the pickling flavors.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma that carries into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar mixture while it is boiling. Hot liquid penetrates the cucumbers more readily and helps the spices release their aroma and flavor into the vinegar, so the pickles taste more evenly seasoned.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, pepper, horseradish. 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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