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Cucumber Pickles

A method of preserving cucumbers in a brine with spices, vinegar, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Cucumber Pickles

five to six gallons of cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Prepare a brine that can float an egg and cover the cucumbers.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in the brine for three days.

  3. After three days, pour off the brine and boil it, skimming off any froth.

  4. Repeat this daily for ten days or two weeks.

  5. After the brine process, soak the cucumbers in fresh water overnight.

Green and spice

  1. Mix equal parts vinegar and fresh water, adding enough alum to make the pickles brittle.

  2. Scald the cucumbers in this mixture daily until they turn green, which may take three to four days.

  3. In a pot, boil one pound each of allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and horseradish, along with half a pound of celery seed and one gallon of onions in vinegar until partially cooked.

  4. Sweeten the mixture to taste.

  5. This will be enough for five to six gallons of cucumbers.

  6. Add red peppers and ensure the vinegar is cold before pouring it over the pickles.

  7. Do not remove the cucumbers from the water until the vinegar is ready to prevent wilting.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Main vegetable that is transformed into pickles through brining and soaking.
Alum
Firms the cucumber flesh so the pickles stay brittle rather than soft.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sour flavor.
Onions
Add sweetness and body to the pickling liquid as they partially cook.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the cucumbers in water until the vinegar is ready. Cucumbers removed from water and left in air lose moisture and wilt, which softens their texture. Holding them submerged until the cold vinegar is poured over keeps them crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, celery. 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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