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One Can Sweet Pickled Cucumbers

A method for making sweet pickled cucumbers in a single jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

One Can Sweet Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Scrub and wash the cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle the cucumbers with salt and cover with cold water. Use ½ cup of salt for 2 quarts of water.

  3. Drain and rinse the cucumbers in cold water the next morning.

  4. Drain the cucumbers again.

Pack and brine

  1. Pack the cucumbers in a fruit jar.

  2. Pour vinegar over the cucumbers to cover them.

  3. Prepare more cucumbers each day until the jar is filled.

  4. Drain off the vinegar once the jar is filled.

  5. Add peppers, cloves, mustard seed, ginger root, mace, or bay leaf.

Finish and seal

  1. Scald 3 cups of vinegar with ¼ cup or more of sugar. Pour the scalded vinegar over the cucumbers, filling the jar to overflow.

  2. Adjust the rubber seal and cover the jar. Set the jar aside.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Small cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, becoming crisp and firm as they cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, firming their texture during brining.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness, giving the pickles their sweet-sour character.

The step that matters

Draining and rinsing after the salt soak. Rinsing removes surface salt so the pickles do not taste overly salty, while the overnight soak has already drawn out water that keeps the cucumbers crisp rather than soft.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, pepper, clove, mustard, ginger, sugar. 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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