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To Pickle Large Cucumbers

This recipe describes how to pickle large cucumbers with salt, spices, and boiling vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

To Pickle Large Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Peel cucumbers very thin and cut them in half.

  2. Remove the seeds and lay the cucumbers in coarse sea salt for 24 hours.

Fill and pickle

  1. Wipe the cucumbers dry and fill them with mustard seed, peeled shallots, garlic, small slips of horse-radish, and mace.

  2. Tie the cucumbers with twine and place them in jars.

  3. Pour boiling vinegar over the cucumbers and cover the jars tightly until ready to 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. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + radishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large cucumbers
Form the pickle itself; their firm flesh holds shape and crunch after brining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming the flesh and seasoning it during the long salt rest.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that penetrates the cucumber as it pickles.
Shallots
Contribute mild onion sweetness and aroma that mellow during pickling.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that infuses the cucumber during pickling.
Horse-radish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that softens somewhat as the pickle matures.

The step that matters

Lay the cucumbers in salt for 24 hours. Salt must draw out enough water to firm the cucumbers; too short a rest leaves them soft and watery, and the vinegar then dilutes the flavour and texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, shallot, garlic, horse, radish, 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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