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Green Sour Pickles

A pickled cucumber or green tomato relish prepared with salt, water, vinegar, peppers, cloves, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Sour Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Layer the cucumbers or tomatoes with salt in a stone jar.

  2. Cover with cold water.

  3. Let stand overnight.

  4. Drain off the brine.

  5. Scald and pour over the vegetables again.

  6. Let stand overnight.

  7. Drain.

Pickle and store

  1. Scald enough vinegar to cover the pickles with peppers, cloves, and horseradish.

  2. Add the pickles.

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

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers or tomatoes and firms them during the overnight brining.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Whole cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor that mellows during pickling.

The step that matters

Draining and re-scalding the brine. The vegetables must be drained well before the vinegar is added, because excess brine and water dilute the vinegar and weaken its acidity, which affects flavor and preservation.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, pepper, horseradish):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper, horseradish. 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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