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Cucumber Pickles

Cucumber pickles made by brining cucumbers, scalding vinegar, and seasoning with brown sugar, peppers, mustard seed, ginger, celery seed, spices, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Make a strong brine with rock salt that can float an egg and bring it to a boil.

  2. Pour the boiling brine over the cucumbers.

  3. Let the cucumbers stand for 24 hours.

Rinse and scald the vinegar

  1. Wash the cucumbers in clear, cold water and dry them.

  2. Scald the vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers.

  3. Let the cucumbers stand for another 24 hours.

  4. Discard the vinegar.

Make and pour the syrup

  1. Combine fresh vinegar with brown sugar, green peppers, mustard seed, grated ginger, celery seed, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and powdered alum.

  2. Scald this mixture together.

  3. Pour the scalded mixture over the cucumbers with boiling water.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Main vegetable; the brine and soaks firm and season them.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Green peppers
Contribute vegetable flavor and a bit of crunch to the pickles.

The step that matters

Brine strength. The brine must be strong enough to float an egg. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers through osmosis, so a weak brine leaves them soft and under-seasoned.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, egg, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, celery. 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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