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Cucumber Pickles

A traditional method of pickling cucumbers with a brine of salt, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers and let them cool.

  2. Drain the cucumbers and sprinkle with dry salt.

  3. Cover the cucumbers again with boiling water.

  4. Boil the brine and pour it over the pickles for seven mornings.

Finish and pack

  1. On the eighth day, let the pickles sit on the back of the stove in weak vinegar for several hours.

  2. When the pickles look plump, wipe them dry and pack them in jars with the spices.

  3. Cover the packed pickles with boiling vinegar.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickles themselves; their firm flesh takes up the brine and vinegar flavour.
Dry salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, helping them stay firm and crisp.
Weak vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
White mustard seed
Contributes a mild, pungent heat and sharp aroma to the pickling liquid.
Black mustard seed
Adds a stronger, more pungent heat and aroma than white mustard seed.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that season the pickles.

The step that matters

Salting and brining over seven mornings. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and firms their flesh; the brine must cover them fully and be re-boiled and poured each morning to keep the pickles safe and crisp rather than soft or spoiled.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

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