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Pickled Cucumbers

A method of preserving cucumbers in a brine and vinegar mixture with spices and seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in moderately strong brine for 3 days, covered with grape or cabbage leaves and weighted down.

  2. Remove the brine from the cucumbers.

  3. Boil the brine.

  4. Return the boiled brine to the cucumbers.

  5. Layer grape leaves and cucumbers.

  6. Sprinkle with a little pulverized alum.

  7. Pour hot brine over the cucumbers.

  8. Let sit for 3 more days.

  9. Soak cucumbers in cold water for a few hours.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Mix 2 gallons of good vinegar with all spices and prepared onions and horseradish to make the vinegar.

  2. Let the mixture sit in the sun for 24 hours before adding to the vinegar.

  3. Stir daily.

Pickle and finish

  1. Place cucumbers in cold vinegar for 3 days before they are ready.

  2. Add cucumbers in the fall.

  3. Adjust sugar to taste.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 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
Main vegetable that softens in brine and takes up the vinegar and spice flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during brining.
Good vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves and flavours the pickles.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the vinegar.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the pickling vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sour vinegar, added to taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, grape, vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, turmeric):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, grape, vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, turmeric. 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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