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To Pickle Gherkins and French Beans

A pickled gherkin recipe using vinegar, spices, and saltwater brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins and French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a large earthen pan with 1 gallon of spring water and 2 pounds of coarse sea salt, and mix well.

  2. Add the gherkins to the saltwater and let them soak for 2 hours.

  3. Drain the gherkins and let them dry.

Make the pickle

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

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the gherkins and cover tightly. Let them sit for 24 hours.

  3. After 24 hours, simmer the gherkins on the stove until they turn green, being careful not to let them boil.

  4. Transfer the gherkins to a jar and cover tightly until cool.

Store

  1. Seal the jar with a bladder and leather, and store in a cool, dry place.

  2. Always keep pickles tightly sealed and use a wooden spoon to remove them.

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Horseradish + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 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
Main vegetable whose firm, crisp texture and flavour are transformed by the brine and vinegar.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that flavours the pickle and helps preserve the gherkins.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the gherkins during the soak, firming their texture and seasoning them.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar mixture.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Gentle heat lets the gherkins take on colour and absorb the spiced vinegar while staying firm. A rolling boil would soften their flesh and break down the texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, horseradish, dill. 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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