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Mangoes of Cucumber's

A pickled cucumber dish flavored with salt, alum, vine leaves, horseradish, mustard seed, garlic, peppercorns, and green cucumbers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mangoes of Cucumber's

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cut a piece out of the side of each cucumber and remove the seeds with a teaspoon.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in a mixture of strong salt and water until they turn yellow, stirring them two to three times daily.

Cook and drain

  1. Place the cucumbers in a pan layered with vine leaves, both above and below.

  2. Finely beat some roach-alum and add it to the saltwater from the cucumbers. Pour the alum mixture over the cucumbers and cook them on a slow fire for four to five hours until they turn green.

  3. Remove the cucumbers and drain them in a sieve.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, add a little horseradish, mustard seed, garlic, peppercorns, and sliced green 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Horseradish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Large cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle, with seeds removed to make room for filling.
Roach-alum
Firms the cucumber flesh and helps it hold a crisp texture during long cooking.
Strong salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the yellowing soak.
Vine leaves
Layered around the cucumbers, they add tannins that help keep the pickle firm and green.
Green cucumbers
Sliced and added at the end to contribute fresh crunch and colour.

The step that matters

Slow cooking with alum until green. Long gentle heat with alum keeps the cucumbers firm; a hard boil would soften them into mush. Hold the fire low and watch for the colour change.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, horseradish, mustard):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horseradish, mustard. 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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