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Cucumber Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish made by soaking in a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine and rinse

  1. Make a weak brine.

  2. Soak cucumbers in hot brine for 24 hours.

  3. Soak cucumbers in cold brine for 48 hours.

  4. Rinse and dry cucumbers with a cloth.

Heat in vinegar

  1. In a brass kettle, combine vinegar and alum.

  2. Add cucumbers to the kettle.

  3. Heat slowly, turning frequently.

  4. Once heated through, remove cucumbers to a crock.

  5. Bring the vinegar to a boil and pour it over the pickles.

  6. Let them sit for at least 24 hours.

  7. Drain off the vinegar.

Spice and pour

  1. Prepare fresh vinegar and add spices into small muslin bags.

  2. Scald the muslin bags with vinegar.

  3. Pour the spiced vinegar over the pickles.

  4. If you want crunchier pickles, let the vinegar cool before pouring.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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
Form the pickle itself, and brining firms their texture before pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavors the cucumbers.
Alum
Helps keep the cucumbers firm and crisp during heating.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.

The step that matters

Heat slowly, turning frequently. Gentle, even heating keeps the cucumbers from overcooking and going soft. Turning them distributes heat so the pickles warm through evenly without losing their crispness.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, 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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