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Cucumber Pickles

A brined cucumber pickle made with vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns, horseradish, and red peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cucumbers in strong brine for 24 hours.

  2. Pour off the brine and rinse cucumbers in clear water.

Pack and seal

  1. Scald cucumbers in vinegar until it is hot.

  2. Dip cucumbers out and fill jars.

  3. Pour hot vinegar over cucumbers until jars are full.

  4. Seal jars while hot.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cinnamon + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Green cucumbers
The main vegetable, which the brine and hot vinegar turn into pickles.
Pure cider vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the pickles and gives their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whole cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar.
Stick cinnamon
Adds a sweet, woody aroma to the pickling liquid.
Black peppercorns
Add a sharp, aromatic heat that flavours the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Seal jars while hot.. Hot vinegar and hot jars drive out air, and as the contents cool they draw the lid down to form a vacuum seal. Letting the jars cool before sealing can leave them unsealed.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon, horseradish, 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

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

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