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Cucumber Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish flavored with spices and vinegar.

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

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jars

  1. Wash cucumbers in cold water and wipe them dry.

  2. Layer cucumbers in jars with whole cinnamon, cloves, peppers, dill, laurel leaves, celery, mustard seed, horse-radish, and a small lump of alum.

  3. Fill jars and place them in hot water.

Make the brine and seal

  1. In a pot, combine 1 gallon of vinegar, 1 pint of sugar, and 1 cup of coarse sea salt; boil and skim.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the pickles while hot and seal the jars.

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. Clove + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Dill + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 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
The main vegetable that becomes the pickle, firming and taking on flavor from the brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw flavor into the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling brine while hot and sealing. The brine must be fully boiling and the jars sealed while hot so the acid and heat keep the pickles safe and stop spoilage microbes from growing.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, clove, pepper, dill, laurel, celery, mustard):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, pepper, dill, laurel, celery, mustard. 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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