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Cucumbers, to Pickle

This is a method for pickling cucumbers with onions, salt, vinegar, mace, pepper, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,050 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumbers, to Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Slice large cucumbers and place them in a pewter dish.

  2. Slice two large onions thinly for every dozen cucumbers.

  3. Layer sliced onions with a handful of coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover with another pewter dish.

  5. Let stand for 24 hours.

  6. Transfer cucumbers to a colander to drain.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place cucumbers in a jar.

  2. Cover with white wine vinegar.

  3. Let stand for 4 hours.

  4. Boil the vinegar with salt.

  5. Add mace, whole pepper, and sliced ginger.

  6. Pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers.

Cover and seal

  1. Cover tightly.

  2. Let cool.

  3. Seal the jar.

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. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and give it a firm, crisp bite.
Large onions
Add sweetness and body, and release moisture when layered with salt.
White wine vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that flavours the pickle and helps preserve it.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic note to the vinegar.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar.
Whole pepper
Adds gentle peppery aroma and heat to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Draining the salted cucumbers well before jarring. Salt draws water out of the cucumbers and onions. Any moisture left behind dilutes the vinegar and softens the pickle, so the cucumbers should drain thoroughly before they go into the jar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, white wine, vinegar, pepper, ginger):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, white wine, vinegar, pepper, ginger. 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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