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Cucumber Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish made by brining, vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, ginger, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Make a brine that will float an egg and heat it until boiling.

  2. Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and let them stand for 24 hours, or make a cold brine and let it stand for 48 hours.

  3. Wipe the black specks from each cucumber.

Make the pickling syrup

  1. Add enough vinegar to cover the cucumbers and a small lump of alum.

  2. Place the cucumbers in a brass kettle with the cold vinegar and heat slowly, turning them from the bottom several times.

  3. Let them stand for 24 hours.

  4. If needed, add more vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  5. In a muslin bag, tie together 3 pints of brown sugar, 3 cups of mustard seed, a handful of celery seed, ginger root, and a piece of alum.

  6. Scald the bag with vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers hot.

Finish

  1. Add green peas and horseradish cold, if desired.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle, which firms and absorbs the brine and spice flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp tang.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during long soaking and heating.

The step that matters

Heating the cucumbers slowly in the vinegar. Heating too fast or too long can soften the cucumbers and make them mushy. Slow heat and turning them help them warm evenly and keep their firm texture while they absorb the vinegar.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery, walnut):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard, celery, walnut. 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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