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To Pickle Cucumbers

A method for pickling cucumbers using brine, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Soak cucumbers in strong brine for several days.

Pickle

  1. Place them in a stone pot and pour boiling vinegar over them.

  2. Boil the vinegar 7-8 times until pickles are green and hard.

  3. Add enough fresh vinegar to cover the pickles.

  4. For every 1½ gallons of vinegar, add 4 ounces black pepper, 4 ounces mustard seed, 2 ounces green ginger, 2 ounces allspice, ½ ounce cloves, 4 ounces celery seed, and 6 small Mexican red peppers.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 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
The main vegetable that becomes firm, crisp pickles after brining and hot vinegar.
Strong brine
Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them before pickling.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity preserves the cucumbers and sets their firm, green texture.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat to the spiced vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, tangy flavour that infuses the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil the vinegar 7-8 times. Repeated boiling of the vinegar over the cucumbers helps them turn green and firm. Too little reheating may leave pickles soft, so the repeated boiling matters.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, mustard, ginger, allspice, clove, celery. 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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