Skip to main content

To Pickle Gherkins

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean and wash the gherkins, then cut off the stalks.

  2. Place them in a jar with coarse sea salt and stir occasionally for 1-2 days.

  3. Afterward, discard the liquid they have released and add more salt and vinegar.

  4. The next day, discard this liquid and replace it with fresh vinegar, tarragon, small onions, garlic, allspice, cloves, and whole peppercorns.

  5. To perfect the gherkins after a week, replace the vinegar with fresh vinegar and add more spices and pepper.

  6. Cover the jar tightly to keep out air, which can spoil the gherkins' taste and appearance.

  7. Optionally, add red, ripe capsicums for improved flavor.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tarragon + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Clove + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, tarragon, garlic, allspice, clove, capsicum):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, tarragon, garlic, allspice, clove, capsicum. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes