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Sour Pickle

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, spices, and optional aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Sour Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Soak the salt out of the cucumbers.

  2. Place cucumbers in a kettle and cover with equal parts vinegar and water.

  3. Add the red pepper.

  4. Pound the alum and add it to the kettle.

  5. Simmer for about 30 minutes until the cucumbers are a good green.

Pack and pickle

  1. Remove the cucumbers and drain them.

  2. Place the cucumbers in jars.

  3. Boil 1 pint of vinegar with a pinch each of cinnamon, cloves, mace, black pepper, celery seed, and ginger, along with 1 tablespoon of sugar.

  4. Pour the boiling mixture over the pickles.

  5. Fill the jars with cold vinegar.

  6. Optionally, add onion, horseradish, and white mustard seed without cooking.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable that becomes the pickle, softening and taking on the brine flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that defines the pickle and preserves the cucumbers.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers keep their firm texture and green color during simmering.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer until a good green. Simmering too briefly leaves the cucumbers pale and underflavored, while overcooking softens them. The heat and alum together set the color and firmness, so the timing needs watching.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper, cinnamon, clove, celery, ginger. 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.

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