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Ripe Cucumber Pickle

A sweet pickle made by soaking cucumbers in vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 874 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the cucumbers and remove the seeds.

  2. Cut the cucumbers into pieces.

Soak

  1. Soak the pieces in cold vinegar for 24 hours.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of vinegar, 2 pounds of sugar, and 1 ounce of cinnamon buds.

  2. Boil the mixture until the cucumbers become clear.

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 + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together874 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main body and texture of the pickles, which firm and turn clear as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture out of the cucumber pieces as the syrup forms.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that defines the pickle and helps soften the cucumber pieces.
Cinnamon buds
Contribute the warm aroma that flavors the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until the cucumbers become clear. The hot sugar syrup slowly replaces water in the cucumber tissue, which makes the pieces translucent. Stopping too early leaves them opaque and less sweet, while boiling too long breaks down their structure and turns them soft and mushy.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, 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.

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