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To Pickle Cucumbers, Small Melons, and Beans

This recipe describes a method for pickling cucumbers, small melons, and beans in a spiced brine and vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers, Small Melons, and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the vegetables

  1. Gather cucumbers, small melons, and beans.

  2. Prepare strong brine and heat it until scalding hot.

  3. Pour the hot brine over the vegetables every morning for ten days.

  4. After ten days, boil the brine and pour it over the vegetables every two to three weeks.

  5. To prepare for use, soak the vegetables in clear water, changing the water daily until fresh.

Make the pickle

  1. Place the vegetables in an iron vessel with cold vinegar and heat until near boiling.

  2. Remove the vegetables from the vinegar and place them in a new vessel with cold vinegar.

  3. Add cloves, mace, ginger, allspice, horseradish, olive oil, mustard seed, and green pepper pods.

  4. Add 1 pound of brown sugar for each gallon of vinegar.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cucumber + melontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Cucumber + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Main vegetable that becomes crisp-tender and tangy after brining and pickling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Cold vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Strong brine
Salt draws water out of the vegetables and firms their texture before pickling.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma that complements the spices.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot brine every morning for ten days. The brine must stay scalding hot each time it is poured. Repeated hot brining draws water out and firms the vegetables, so letting the brine cool or skipping days weakens the texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, melon, beans, vinegar, clove, ginger, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, melon, beans, vinegar, clove, ginger, allspice. 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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