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Cucumber Pickles

A method of preserving cucumbers by soaking, boiling, and brining with vinegar, spices, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Dissolve the salt in the water.

  2. Soak the cucumbers in the brine for three days.

  3. After three days, pour off the brine.

  4. Boil the brine, then skim it.

  5. Pour the hot brine back over the cucumbers.

  6. Let the cucumbers sit for another three days.

  7. Boil the brine again.

  8. Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers.

  9. Soak the cucumbers in boiling water overnight.

Pack and seal

  1. Wipe the cucumbers dry.

  2. Place the cucumbers in a jar.

  3. Boil enough vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  4. Add green peppers, onions, black peppercorns, allspice, and a bit of alum to the vinegar.

  5. Pour the hot vinegar over the cucumbers.

  6. Weigh the cucumbers down.

  7. Seal the jar tightly.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cucumber + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together501 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Main vegetable that softens and absorbs brine flavour during the long soaks.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brine soak.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Green peppers
Add fresh, vegetal flavour to the pickling liquid.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Keep the cucumbers fully submerged under the vinegar. Any cucumber left above the liquid can spoil or grow mould, so the vinegar must cover them and the cucumbers are weighed down to keep them under.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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