Skip to main content
Dessert

Cucumbers, or Girkins

A method of preserving cucumbers by soaking in saltwater, boiling with syrup, and storing in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 973 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumbers, or Girkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cucumbers in saltwater for three days.

  2. Drain the cucumbers.

  3. Scald the cucumbers in fresh water.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand overnight.

  5. Drain the cucumbers again.

Make the syrup

  1. Place the cucumbers in a pan with syrup and water.

  2. Boil the mixture for five minutes.

  3. Let the cucumbers sit in the syrup overnight.

  4. Drain the syrup.

  5. In a clean pan, boil the syrup until thick.

  6. Add the cucumbers to the thick syrup.

  7. Boil gently for fifteen minutes.

Rest and repeat

  1. Transfer the cucumbers to a flat pan.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Let the cucumbers stand for two days.

  4. Drain the syrup.

  5. Boil the syrup for two to three minutes.

  6. Pour the boiled syrup over the cucumbers.

  7. Repeat this process for five to six days.

Pack

  1. Pack the cucumbers in pots.

  2. Cover the pots with a bladder.

  3. Optionally add pieces of ginger to each pot.

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

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

  2. Syrup + gingertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cucumber + syruptop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
The main vegetable, which softens and takes on sweetness as it soaks in the syrup.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and, once thickened by boiling, draws water out of the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Thickening the syrup. Boiling the syrup until thick concentrates its sugar. A concentrated sugar syrup draws water out of the cucumbers and helps preserve them, so the syrup should be boiled down properly before the cucumbers are added.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, syrup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, syrup. 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.

More pickled cucumbers recipes

Sweet 28and Onions 10Oil 8Green 4 See all 231 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesSoft Ginger CakeSoft Ginger Cake56 recipes