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Cucumber Pickles

A brined cucumber pickle made with salt, alum, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Brine and soak

  1. Dissolve 1 pint of fine salt in boiling water and pour it over the cucumbers while hot, ensuring they are fully covered.

  2. Let the cucumbers stand for 24 hours, then drain and rinse them.

  3. Dissolve the piece of alum in boiling water, pour it over the cucumbers hot, and let them stand for 6 hours.

  4. Pour off the alum water and rinse the cucumbers again.

Spice and pickle

  1. Scald enough best vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  2. Add 1 ounce each of cloves, cinnamon, and white mustard seed, along with 1 cup of sugar to the vinegar.

  3. Pour this boiling hot mixture over the cucumbers.

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 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
Main vegetable that is firmed and preserved by the salt and alum soaks.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, helping them stay crisp and preserved.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during the long soaking.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Rinsing off the alum water before pickling. Alum is used to keep the cucumbers firm, but leftover alum water would taste bitter and harsh, so the cucumbers must be rinsed well before the vinegar is added.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, egg, vinegar, cinnamon, mustard, sugar. 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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