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Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber and onion mixture flavored with vinegar, sugar, ginger, pepper, mustard seed, celery seed, cinnamon, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cucumbers and onions.

  2. Soak them in salt water for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the cucumbers and onions.

Make and pour the brine

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, ginger, black pepper, salt, mustard seed, celery seed, cinnamon, and turmeric.

  2. Heat the mixture until it is warm.

  3. Pour over the cucumbers and onions, then seal in 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, watery body that the pickling liquid flavours and preserves.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that mellow as they sit in the brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions, helping them stay crisp.

The step that matters

Drain the cucumbers and onions. Salt draws water out of the vegetables during soaking, so they must be drained well before the hot liquid is added. Leftover surface water dilutes the brine and makes the pickles softer and less crisp.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, celery. 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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