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Green Pickled Cucumbers

A preserved cucumber dish made with a strong brine, vinegar, spices, and grape leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the cucumbers

  1. Make a strong brine that can float an egg.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in the brine for 3 weeks.

  3. Drain the salt water.

  4. Soak the cucumbers in cold water for 24 hours.

Pack and pickle

  1. Line a kettle with grape leaves.

  2. Layer the cucumbers with grape leaves in between.

  3. Cover the cucumbers with more grape leaves.

  4. Heat vinegar and water with a lump of alum until warm but not boiling.

  5. Transfer the pickles to cold water.

  6. Prepare the vinegar mixture by boiling it with sugar, black peppers, cloves, allspice, mace, horse-radish, red pepper, and mustard seed.

  7. Let the vinegar cool.

  8. Pour the cooled vinegar over the cucumbers.

  9. Seal the jar tightly.

  10. Let it sit for a few weeks before using.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 is cured and pickled into crisp, tangy pieces.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Soaking in the strong brine. The brine must be strong enough to draw water out of the cucumbers and preserve them. A weak brine can let them soften or spoil during the long cure.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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