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To Pickle Small Cucumbers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

To Pickle Small Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cover cucumbers with fresh water and let them stand for 12 hours.

  2. Drain and cover with strong salt water, letting them stand for another 12 hours.

  3. Boil enough weak cider vinegar with a small lump of alum to cover the cucumbers and let them stand overnight.

  4. Pack cucumbers in bottles or jars, mixing in mustard seed, cloves, cinnamon, red pepper, and 1 tablespoon of sugar for each bottle.

  5. Cover with wine vinegar, seal, and store in a cool place. They will be ready to use in a short time.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, mustard, clove, cinnamon, pepper, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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