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To Pickle Cucumbers, &C

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers, &C

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the gerkins in a strong brine of salt and water for three days.

  2. Wipe them dry and place them in stone jars.

  3. In a preserving pan, combine enough vinegar to cover the gerkins with whole ginger, black pepper, mace, allspice, cloves, horseradish slices, peeled onions, shallots, and garlic.

  4. Boil the mixture for ten minutes and pour it over the gerkins.

  5. Cover the jars with cabbage leaves and a plate, then set them in a warm place.

  6. The next day, drain the liquid, boil it, and pour it over the gerkins again.

  7. If they are not green enough on the third day, boil the vinegar again and pour it over them, or boil the gerkins in the vinegar for three minutes.

  8. When cold, cover the jars with bladder and white leather, and store them in a dry place.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, clove, horseradish, onion):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, clove, horseradish, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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