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Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using mustard seed, pepper, garlic, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cut the top off the cucumbers, leaving a hinge of rind.

  2. Scoop out the seeds with a marrow spoon.

  3. Fill the cucumbers with equal parts mustard seed and ground pepper.

  4. Add garlic to the cucumbers.

  5. Tie the lid back on with white thread.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. In a bowl, mix vinegar, flour of mustard, curry powder, bruised ginger, turmeric, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Rub the mixture with salad oil.

  3. Add sliced eschalots and garlic to the mixture.

  4. Steep the spice mixture in the vinegar.

Pour and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the filled 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cucumber + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the hollow vessels that hold the spice filling and absorb the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the filling as it softens in the liquid.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the cucumbers and carries the spice flavours.
Salad oil
Carries fat-soluble spice flavours and gives the spice mixture a smoother coating.
Turmeric
Adds a warm yellow colour and earthy, bitter aroma to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the filled cucumbers. The liquid must be hot enough to soften the cucumber and begin extracting spice flavour and aroma. Pouring it cool would leave the pickle crisp, pale and under-flavoured.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, mustard, pepper, clove, garlic, vinegar, flour):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, pepper, clove, garlic, vinegar, flour. 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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