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Bottled Pickles

A method for making spiced pickled cucumbers in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bottled Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Wash and wipe the cucumbers.

  2. Pack the cucumbers tightly in a stone jar.

  3. Sprinkle the salt over the cucumbers.

  4. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers to cover them.

  5. Cover the jar with a cloth.

  6. Let it stand until cold, preferably overnight.

  7. Drain the water.

Prepare the pickling liquid

  1. Place the pickles in a pot with cold vinegar and bring to a boil.

  2. Transfer the pickles to a stone jar.

  3. Cover the jar with either cold or hot vinegar.

  4. For bottling, prepare the pickles with salt and boiling water as above.

  5. Drain the pickles when cold.

  6. Heat a gallon of cider vinegar with ½ pint of brown sugar in a separate pot.

  7. Slice the green and red peppers into rings.

  8. Wash, scrape, and cut the horseradish roots into small pieces.

  9. Soak the mustard seeds in boiling water for 15 minutes.

Bottle and spice

  1. When the pickles boil, pack them in bottles.

  2. Add the prepared spices to the bottles.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  4. Horseradish + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickles, and their firm texture is what the brine and vinegar work on.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, firming the flesh for pickling.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharply flavours the pickles.
Brown sugar
Balances the sourness of the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth.
Black mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and heat to the pickling liquid.
Horseradish roots
Adds a pungent, sharp bite that flavours the pickles.

The step that matters

Drain the pickles when cold. Cucumbers are mostly water, and residual brine or moisture dilutes the vinegar and weakens the pickle. Draining well keeps the pickling liquid strong and the texture firm.

Swap the cinnamon

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

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

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