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Cucumber Pickles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a brine with cold water and enough salt to float an egg.

  2. Heat the brine until boiling and pour it over the pickles.

  3. Let the pickles stand for 24 hours, then remove and dry them.

  4. Scald fresh vinegar and pour it over the pickles, letting them stand for another 24 hours.

  5. Pour off the vinegar and cover the pickles with boiling fresh vinegar.

  6. Add 1 quart of brown sugar, 2 large green peppers, ½ pound of white mustard seed, 6 cents worth of ginger root, 1 ounce of ground cinnamon, 1 ounce of ground allspice, 1 ounce of ground cloves, and 1 tablespoon of celery seed.

  7. Put the spices in a bag.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More cucumber pickles recipes

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

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