Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Gherkins

A method for pickling gherkins using a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gherkins

  1. Gather gherkins on a dry day before frost.

  2. Remove blossoms from the gherkins.

  3. Place gherkins in a stone jar and pour boiling brine over them to cover.

  4. The next day, remove gherkins from the jar and wipe them.

Make the pickle

  1. Layer the gherkins in a clean stone jar with bay leaves.

  2. In a pot, combine vinegar, salt, peppercorns, ginger, and mace, and bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling pickle over the gherkins and cover with a plate.

  4. Let sit for two days.

Finish and store

  1. Drain the vinegar and reheat it until boiling.

  2. Add gherkins and simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pour everything back into the jar and cover with a plate.

  4. Let cool completely.

  5. Once cool, tightly cover the jar with thick brown paper.

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. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Gherkins
Provide the crisp, firm body that the pickle is built around.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the gherkins and seasons the brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth to the vinegar mixture.
Black peppercorns
Contribute a sharp, aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling brine over the gherkins and keep the vinegar at a boil before adding the gherkins. Boiling liquid helps the pickle penetrate and begin to preserve the gherkins, while simmering only briefly (2-3 minutes) keeps them from turning soft. Overcooking breaks down the cell structure and loses crispness.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes