Skip to main content
Main

Cucumber Pickles

Pickles preserved in a vinegar and spice solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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

Prepare the pickles

  1. Pour boiling water over the pickles to cover them and let them stand for 24 hours.

  2. Remove the pickles from the water, wiping each one with a dry towel.

  3. Layer the pickles in a stone jar.

Brine and weight

  1. In a pot, combine 1 gallon of vinegar, 1 cup of coarse sea salt, 2 tablespoons of alum, 2 tablespoons of cloves, 2 tablespoons of allspice, 2 tablespoons of mustard, and 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour it over the pickles.

  3. Once cool, place a plate over the pickles and add a weight.

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 + cinnamontop 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cucumbers and seasons the brine.
Alum
Helps the pickles stay firm and crisp during soaking.
Cloves
Adds warm aromatic spice flavor to the pickles.
Allspice
Adds warm aromatic spice flavor to the pickles.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aromatic spice flavor to the pickles.

The step that matters

Covering the pickles with boiling water and letting them stand 24 hours. Hot water softens the skins so the brine can penetrate evenly. Keeping the pickles fully submerged prevents exposed surfaces from spoiling or drying out during the long soak.

“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 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes