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Cncamber Mangoes

Pickled cucumbers stuffed with a mixture of horseradish, garlic, mustard seed, and spices, then preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cncamber Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Cut a long narrow strip out of the sides of the cucumbers and scoop out the seeds.

  2. Pound some cucumber flesh with horseradish, garlic, mustard seed, and white pepper.

  3. Stuff the hollows of the cucumbers with the mixture.

  4. Replace the strips.

  5. Bind them with thread.

Make the pickling vinegar

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the cucumbers and pour it over them while hot for three days.

  2. On the last day, boil the vinegar with mace, cloves, pepper, mustard seed, horseradish, and garlic.

Jar and set aside

  1. Put the cucumbers into jars.

  2. Pour the boiling liquid over them.

  3. Tie the jars tightly.

  4. Set aside for use.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

Large green cucumbers
Forms the body of the pickle and takes on the vinegar's sourness and flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sours the cucumbers and helps preserve them.
Horse-radish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that mellows somewhat in the vinegar.
Mustard-seed
Adds a sharp, slightly bitter bite to the pickling liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the filling and the liquid.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling liquid over the cucumbers in the jars. Hot liquid helps the brine penetrate the cucumbers and drives out air, while the vinegar's acidity does the preserving. Weak or cool liquid gives a less thorough pickle.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horse, radish, garlic, mustard, white pepper, vinegar. 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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