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Sweet Cucumber Pickles

A sweet pickle made by soaking cucumber slices, boiling sugar and vinegar with spices, then simmering with cucumbers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Sweet Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Slice cucumbers into ½ inch thick slices and soak in weak salt water for 1 hour.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by boiling sugar and vinegar together.

  2. Tie cinnamon and cloves in muslin and add to the syrup.

  3. Boil until thick.

Simmer and finish

  1. Drain cucumbers, rinse in clear water, and add to the syrup.

  2. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cucumber + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Green cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, becoming tender and absorbing the syrup during simmering.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the syrup and thickens it as it boils down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickles their sharp, preserving tang.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavour to the syrup.
Cloves
Adds aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 3 hours. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the cucumber slices intact while they soften and take up the syrup. A hard boil can break them apart and make the syrup cloudy.

Swap the cucumber

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

  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, vinegar, cinnamon, clove. 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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