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Cucumber Vinegar

A fermented cucumber vinegar made by boiling cucumbers, onions, shallots, garlic, salt, pepper, and cayenne in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Cucumber Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. Slice the cucumbers and place them in a stone jar.

  2. Add vinegar, sliced onions, shallots, garlic, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 4 days.

Finish and bottle

  1. After 4 days, bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Once cooled, strain and filter the liquid through paper.

  3. Store in small bottles to use in salads or with meat.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Cucumber + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main vegetable body and crisp texture that softens slightly as they stand in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and supplies the sharp, acidic flavour of the finished vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma that infuse into the vinegar during standing.
Shallots
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the infused liquid.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, spicy aroma and pungency to the flavoured vinegar.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil after 4 days. Boiling after the long standing period is what the record calls for before cooling and straining. Heat extracts and mixes flavours and helps the liquid keep, so the step should not be skipped or rushed.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, onion, shallot, garlic, 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.

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