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Ripe Cucumber Pickles

Pickled cucumbers with onions, peppers, salt, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Ripe Cucumber Pickles

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Pare and remove the seeds from the cucumbers, then chop them well but not too fine.

  2. Chop the onions and peppers finely.

  3. Mix the chopped cucumbers, onions, and peppers thoroughly with the salt and white mustard.

Drain and pickle

  1. Place the mixture in a muslin bag and drain for 24 hours.

  2. Transfer to glass jars, cover with cold vinegar, and seal.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the pickle and give it its crisp, fresh body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, firming their texture and concentrating flavour.
White mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the sweetness of the onions and peppers.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tangy taste.

The step that matters

Draining the salted mixture for 24 hours. Salt draws excess water out of the cucumbers, onions and peppers. Draining it fully keeps the pickle firm and stops extra liquid from diluting the vinegar in the jars.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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