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Preseryed Cucumbers

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, salt, sugar, herbs, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Preseryed Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and dry the cucumbers

  1. Slice the cucumbers into long pieces.

  2. Sprinkle with salt.

  3. Let them sit overnight.

  4. Remove the cucumbers.

  5. Dry them on a napkin.

Scald in vinegar

  1. Boil the cucumbers in 2 quarts of vinegar until tender.

  2. Let the cucumbers sit overnight in the vinegar.

  3. Remove the cucumbers.

  4. Dry them again.

Pickle and seal

  1. Layer the cucumbers in a jar with alternating layers of herbs and button onions, finishing with herbs on top.

  2. Boil 1 quart of wine vinegar with ½ pound of loaf sugar.

  3. Skim the mixture.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Pour the cooled vinegar over the cucumbers.

  6. Seal the jar tightly.

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 + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tarragon + minttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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
The main vegetable; salting and vinegar softening make them crisp-tender and pickled through.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Loaf sugar
Sweetness that balances the sharpness of the wine vinegar.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming their texture before pickling.
Button onions
Adds mild onion flavour that softens and mellows in the brine.

The step that matters

Drying the cucumbers before each vinegar stage. Excess surface water would dilute the vinegar and weaken the pickling liquid, so the cucumbers should be patted dry before they go into vinegar.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, wine, sugar, tarragon, mint. 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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