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To Pickle Gherkins and French Beans

This is a pickled gherkin recipe using vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 and French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the gherkins

  1. Prepare a large earthen pan with 1 gallon of spring water.

  2. Mix in 2 pounds of coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the gherkins to the salted water.

  4. Let them soak for 2 hours.

  5. Drain the gherkins.

  6. Let them dry.

  7. Place them in a jar.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. In a bell metal pot, combine 1 gallon of white wine vinegar, cloves, mace, allspice, mustard seed, sliced horseradish, bay leaves, dill, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Boil the mixture.

Pickle and green

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the gherkins in the jar.

  2. Cover the jar tightly.

  3. Let it sit for 24 hours.

  4. Transfer the gherkins to the pot.

  5. Simmer gently until they turn green, avoiding boiling.

  6. Place them back in the jar.

  7. Cover until cool.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

Gherkins
Are the vegetable being pickled, providing the crisp, firm texture of the finished pickle.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the gherkins and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the gherkins and seasons them before pickling.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp aroma that flavours the pickling liquor.
Cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until they turn green, avoiding boiling. Boiling can soften the gherkins and make them mushy, while gentle heat keeps them firm. Copper or bell metal pots can also react with acid, so the mixture should stay below a rolling boil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, horse, radish):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, horse, radish. 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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