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Cucumber Pickles No 1

A simple pickled cucumber recipe using salt, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 No 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cucumbers thoroughly, removing all black specks.

  2. Place them in a stone jar and cover with water, adding the salt.

  3. Let them soak overnight.

  4. In the morning, drain the cucumbers and place them in a preserving kettle.

Pickle and seal

  1. Cover the cucumbers with vinegar and heat until boiling.

  2. Transfer the cucumbers to glass jars.

  3. Add a few pieces of cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne pepper to each jar.

  4. Fill the jars with hot vinegar and seal tightly.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cucumber + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together874 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Cucumber + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,319 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickle itself, becoming crisp-tender and taking on the brine and spice flavours.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during soaking, firming their texture for pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid and the finished jars.
Cloves
Contribute a pungent, warm aroma that infuses into the vinegar and cucumbers.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat, which carries through the vinegar into the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Soaking in salt water overnight. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers through osmosis, firming their flesh so they stay crisp rather than going soft in the vinegar. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the pickles limp.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, cinnamon, clove, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cinnamon, clove, 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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