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Fresh Cucumber Pickles

A method for pickling small cucumbers in a brine of boiling water, salt, cider vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fresh Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Select small cucumbers of uniform size and place them in a crock.

  2. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers to cover them.

  3. Add a large handful of salt.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand overnight.

  5. Drain the water.

  6. Wash the cucumbers in clear water.

  7. Dry them with a towel, being careful not to break the skins.

Spice and pack

  1. Put the cucumbers back in the crock.

  2. Pour boiling cider vinegar over them.

  3. Add small horseradish roots if available.

  4. For every 100 cucumbers, add 1 oz. of cinnamon, allspice, and whole mustard seed.

  5. Boil enough spice and vinegar to cover the cucumbers, about 2 gallons.

  6. Pour the boiling mixture over the cucumbers.

  7. Seal the 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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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
Firm flesh that stays crisp through brining and becomes the pickle itself.
Barrel salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, helping them firm up.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced vinegar.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavor to the spiced vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, slightly bitter flavor and aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drying the cucumbers gently. Cucumber skins are fragile, and broken skins let the cucumbers soften and take in liquid unevenly, so they must be patted dry without tearing the skin.

“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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