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To Pickle Cucumbers

A method for pickling cucumbers using vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

To Pickle Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place cucumbers in a narrow-topped jar.

  2. Add mace, black peppercorns, long pepper, ginger, and salt to the vinegar.

Pickle

  1. Pour boiling vinegar over the cucumbers.

  2. Set the jar by the fire and keep warm for three days.

  3. Boil the vinegar once each day and keep the jar covered until cucumbers turn a good green.

Store

  1. Tie down the jar with leather for storage.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle and take on the green colour during the process.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and carries the spice flavours.
Black peppercorns
Add sharp, aromatic heat to the brine.
Long pepper
Adds a warm, pungent spice to the brine.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the vinegar once each day. Reheating the vinegar keeps the brine hot and acidic enough to soften and colour the cucumbers and discourage spoilage while the jar sits warm. Keeping the jar covered holds in heat and aroma.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, 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.

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