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To Preserve Cucumbers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

To Preserve Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak fresh gerkins in a mixture of salt and water for 2 days.

  2. Drain and wipe the gerkins dry.

  3. Place them in jars.

  4. Boil a mixture of sugar, vinegar, and water, then pour it over the cucumbers.

  5. Cover the jars and set them in a warm place.

  6. Boil the liquid again and pour it over the cucumbers for 3 consecutive days.

  7. Take 1 quart of the liquid, add cloves, mace, ginger, and lemon peel.

  8. Boil for 30 minutes, strain, and add plenty of sifted sugar.

  9. If necessary, clarify the syrup with egg whites, then reduce it to a strong syrup.

  10. Pour the syrup over the gerkins and seal the jars tightly.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

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

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

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, ginger, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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