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Cucumber Pickles

A method for preserving cucumbers by soaking in salt, then brining with spices and sweetened vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

Brine and soften

  1. Soak the cucumbers in a weak solution of salt and water for two days.

  2. Cover the cucumbers with boiling water and let them sit for two days.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place the cucumbers in jars with whole spices.

  2. Pour boiling hot vinegar sweetened with 1 cup of sugar per gallon over the cucumbers.

  3. Reuse the vinegar for the next batch of pickles.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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, taking on flavor and crunch as they cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the initial soak.
White vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness.
Whole spices
Add aroma and warm flavor that infuse into the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Pouring boiling hot vinegar over the cucumbers. The vinegar must be hot and sufficiently acidic so the pickles are preserved and the brine penetrates evenly. Letting it cool or using weak vinegar risks spoilage and under-flavored pickles.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, clove, cinnamon, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, cinnamon, vinegar, sugar. 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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