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Pickled Cucumbers

A method for preserving cucumbers in vinegar, salt, and alum, optionally flavored with red peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the cucumbers well and pour boiling water over them with a little salt.

  2. Let them stand for 12 hours.

Pickle

  1. Place the cucumbers in cold vinegar.

  2. In a gallon of vinegar, add 1 tablespoon of pulverized alum and ¼ cup of coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the cucumbers remain in the vinegar until it is full.

  4. Scald the cucumbers in the vinegar and then transfer them to new vinegar.

  5. Add red peppers for improved flavor, if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Small cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, taking on the vinegar and salt flavor during soaking.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickles.
Pulverized alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Scald the cucumbers in the vinegar. Heating the cucumbers in vinegar must be controlled so they soften only slightly; overheating breaks down the cell walls and leaves them limp, while the alum helps them keep their firmness.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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