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Congress Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe with brine, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Congress Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Wash the cucumbers.

  2. Sprinkle the cucumbers with 1 pint of fine salt.

  3. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers to cover them.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand in the boiling water for 48 hours.

  5. Remove the cucumbers from the brine.

  6. Wipe the cucumbers dry.

  7. Place the cucumbers in jars.

  8. Pour scalding hot vinegar over the cucumbers along with your chosen spices.

  9. If the vinegar becomes tasteless, replace it with fresh vinegar before using.

Cure in salt brine and vinegar

  1. Mix cold water with enough salt to float an egg.

  2. Heat the mixture until it boils.

  3. Pour the boiling brine over the cucumbers.

  4. Let the cucumbers stand for 24 hours.

  5. Remove the cucumbers from the brine.

  6. Wipe them dry.

  7. Scald vinegar.

  8. Pour the scalded vinegar over the cucumbers.

  9. Let the cucumbers stand for another 24 hours.

  10. Pour off the vinegar.

Make the sweet syrup and finish

  1. Add 1 quart of brown sugar to fresh vinegar.

  2. Add 2 large green peppers to the mixture.

  3. Add ½ pint of white mustard to the mixture.

  4. Add ginger-root to the mixture.

  5. Add cinnamon to the mixture.

  6. Add allspice to the mixture.

  7. Add cloves to the mixture.

  8. Add 1 tablespoon of celery seed to the mixture.

  9. Add alum to the mixture.

  10. Scald the mixture together.

  11. Pour the boiling mixture over the cucumbers.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Are the main vegetable that the salt and vinegar cure and firm into pickles.
Fine salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brining stages.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the sourness of the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth to the syrup.
White mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Replacing tasteless vinegar. Vinegar loses its acidity as it is used to soak the cucumbers, so weak vinegar may not preserve the pickles or give them a proper sour flavour. Using fresh vinegar keeps the acidity strong enough to protect and flavour the cucumbers.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, ginger, cinnamon, allspice. 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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