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Cucumber Pickles

A brined cucumber pickle with vinegar, spices, and mustard seed, preserved in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Combine salt and boiling water to make a brine.

  2. Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and cover them.

  3. Let the cucumbers stand for 24 hours.

  4. Add one small white onion to the brine for every six cucumbers.

  5. Remove the cucumbers from the brine.

Prepare and pack

  1. Wash the cucumbers in equal parts cold water and vinegar.

  2. Dry the cucumbers with a soft towel.

  3. Place the cucumbers back in jars.

Make the spiced vinegar and seal

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, black pepper, and mustard seed.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers.

  4. Once cooled, 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 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 pickles' crisp-textured body that absorbs the brine and spiced vinegar flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brine stage.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and gives the pickles their sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, earthy flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Remove the cucumbers from the brine and dry them before packing. Cucumbers left wet or under-brined can dilute the pickling liquid and soften, while thorough drying helps the spiced vinegar cling and keeps the texture firm.

Swap the onion

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

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

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