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Congress Pickles

Pickles made from cucumbers, salt, vinegar, spices, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Congress Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Wash cucumbers and sprinkle them with 1 pint of fine salt.

  2. Pour boiling water over cucumbers to cover them.

  3. Let cucumbers stand for 48 hours.

  4. Remove cucumbers from brine, wipe them dry, and place them in jars.

Pickle in vinegar

  1. Pour scalding hot vinegar over cucumbers along with any spices you like.

  2. If vinegar becomes tasteless, replace it with fresh vinegar before using.

  3. For the brine, mix cold water and salt strong enough to float an egg, heat it, and pour it over cucumbers.

  4. Let cucumbers stand for 24 hours, then remove and wipe dry.

  5. Scald vinegar and pour it over cucumbers, letting them stand for another 24 hours.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. Pour off the vinegar, then add 1 quart of brown sugar, 2 large green peppers, ½ pint of white mustard, ginger root, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, 1 tablespoon of celery seed, and alum to fresh vinegar.

  2. Scald this mixture together and pour it boiling hot over 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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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
The main vegetable; salting and brining turn it crisp and firm while it slowly softens into pickle.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, firming the flesh during the long brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and rounds out the spices.
White mustard
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour and aroma to the pickling syrup.

The step that matters

Replacing tasteless vinegar. Vinegar loses its acidity and flavour as it sits with the cucumbers. If it has gone flat, the pickles may not be preserved or flavoured properly, so fresh vinegar is needed.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, 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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