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Cold Vinegar Pickles

Pickles made by packing cucumbers in jars and pouring a cold vinegar mixture over them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Vinegar Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Wash cucumbers thoroughly.

  2. Place them in a stone jar.

  3. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers three times, allowing it to cool each time.

  4. Wipe cucumbers dry and pack them in jars.

Make and add the brine

  1. In a separate bowl, mix cider vinegar, dark brown sugar, coarse sea salt, and Colman's mustard.

  2. Pour the cold mixture over the pickles in 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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Cider + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 pickles, giving them their crisp body.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour that balances the sharp vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and draws moisture out of the cucumbers.
Colman's mustard
Adds pungent heat and flavour to the brine.

The step that matters

Cooling the cucumbers between boiling-water pours. Each boiling-water pour must cool fully before the next, so the cucumbers are scalded without cooking. Pouring too hot or too soon can soften the cucumbers and make them mushy.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, 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.

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