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To Pickle Gherkins

A method for pickling gherkins in a brine of water, vinegar, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 560 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the gherkins thoroughly and pack them tightly in a jar.

  2. In a pot, combine equal parts water and vinegar, and add coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Add your choice of spices to the brine mixture.

Brine and pickle

  1. Bring the brine to a boil, then pour it over the gherkins in the jar.

  2. Seal the jar and let it cool before refrigerating.

  3. Allow the gherkins to pickle for at least a week before consuming.

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. Mustard + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + dilltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Gherkins
Provide the crisp, firm vegetable that the brine softens and flavours during pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the gherkins and gives them their sour tang.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw flavour into the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Letting the gherkins pickle for at least a week. Flavour develops slowly as the brine penetrates the cucumbers. Eating them too soon leaves them harsh and under-seasoned, because the acid and salt need time to move into the flesh.

Swap the dill

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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