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Cucumber Pickles

A fermented cucumber pickle made with cucumbers, brine, spices, sugar, and vinegar, left to mature for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak the cucumbers in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the cucumbers.

  3. Place the cucumbers in a clean stone crock and cover with cold brine.

  4. Let the cucumbers sit in the brine for 3 days.

  5. Drain the cucumbers and dry them on a clean towel.

  6. Wash the stone crock.

  7. Return the cucumbers to the crock, covering them with pure water until the next day.

Make the vinegar mixture

  1. Boil the vinegar with the minced onions, cloves, mustard seed, celery seed, and mace.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers.

  3. Add the sugar, stirring well.

  4. Cover the jar tightly.

  5. Let the pickles sit for 1 week.

  6. Scald the vinegar again.

  7. Return the vinegar to the jar.

Cure and age

  1. Allow the pickles to sit for 6 weeks before using.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickle itself; brining firms their texture and seasons them through.
Cold brine
Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, keeping them firm and crisp.
Hot vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, aromatic flavor that infuses into the vinegar.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Return the vinegar to the jar after scalding it again. Vinegar that is not hot enough or is poured over cucumbers too early can fail to infuse and preserve evenly, and the pickles need the full resting time for the flavors to develop.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, egg, onion, clove, mustard, celery, sugar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, egg, onion, clove, mustard, celery, sugar. 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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