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To Pickle Gherkins

A method for pickling small gherkins in vinegar with tarragon, onions, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gherkins

  1. Clean the gherkins thoroughly.

  2. Boil them in plenty of fast boiling water for one minute.

  3. Quickly transfer them to a large bowl of very cold water and change the water once.

  4. Once the gherkins are cold, drain them well and spread them on sieves or dishes to air dry.

Pickle

  1. Place the dried gherkins in stone jars and cover them with boiling vinegar.

  2. Heat the vinegar again and pour it over the gherkins the next day.

  3. On the following day, add the gherkins to the boiling vinegar for one minute along with tarragon, small silver onions, coarse sea salt, and whole pepper.

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. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Tarragon + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Gherkins
The main vegetable, whose firmness is kept by the brief boil and cold water bath.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the gherkins and sharpens their flavour as they pickle.
Small silver onions
Add sweetness and a mild savoury note to the pickling liquid.
Tarragon
Adds a distinct aromatic, herbal flavour to the pickles.

The step that matters

Boiling the gherkins for one minute, then chilling them quickly. Brief boiling softens the surface enough to take up the brine, while the immediate cold bath stops further cooking so the gherkins stay crisp rather than turning soft and mushy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, tarragon, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, tarragon, pepper. 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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