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Ripe Cucumber Pickle

A pickle made by brining ripe cucumbers in vinegar, sugar, cassia buds, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare and seed the cucumbers.

  2. Slice the cucumbers and let them stand in cold weak vinegar for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the cucumbers and place them in fresh vinegar.

Cook and jar

  1. Add brown sugar, cassia buds, and salt to the fresh vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture until the cucumbers are clear.

  3. Pour the hot pickles into fruit 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. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + cassiatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Cassia + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together106 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cassiatop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickles, becoming tender and translucent as they cook in the syrup.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cassia buds
Contribute a warm, spiced aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until the cucumbers are clear. Boiling must be carried far enough for the cucumbers to turn clear and take up the syrup. Stopping too early leaves them opaque and less well preserved, while overcooking makes them soft and mushy.

Swap the cassia

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Cassiathe original

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

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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