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Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber relish flavored with raisins, mustard seeds, cardamom, fennel, celery, turmeric, bird peppers, mustard pickle, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cardamom and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 667 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cucumbers thoroughly.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the cucumbers, raisins, mustard seeds, cardamoms, fennel seed, celery seed, turmeric berries, bird peppers, and mustard pickle.

  3. Add the brown sugar and mix well.

Rest

  1. Let the mixture sit for a few hours to allow the flavors to meld.

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. Cardamom + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cardamom + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Fennel + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a crisp, fresh texture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness as they soften and release moisture.
Mustard seed
Provide sharp, pungent flavor that mellows as the pickle rests.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth, and draws moisture out of the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit. Sugar draws liquid out of the cucumbers and the spices slowly seep into it. Skipping the rest leaves the flavors separate and sharp rather than blended.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, mustard, cardamom, fennel, celery, turmeric, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, cardamom, fennel, celery, turmeric, pepper. 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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