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Cucumber Vinegar

A fermented cucumber vinegar made by salting, brining, and boiling cucumbers with vinegar and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Cucumber Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Salt and drain

  1. Slice the cucumbers and place them in a sieve or bamboo basket in the sun.

  2. Sprinkle the cucumbers generously with coarse sea salt.

Pickle and bottle

  1. Add an equal weight of white wine vinegar and some black peppercorns once the water has drained off.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Let it cool before bottling.

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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cucumber + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together273 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

Ripe cucumbers
Make up the bulk of the vinegar and supply its fresh, vegetal flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, concentrating their flavour and firming their texture.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the vinegar its sharp taste and helps preserve it.
Black peppercorns
Contribute a mild, warm aroma and gentle pungency to the liquid.

The step that matters

Drain off the water before adding the vinegar. Cucumbers release a lot of water when salted. If that liquid is not drained away first, it dilutes the vinegar, lowering its acidity and weakening its ability to preserve the mixture and give a sharp flavour.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Cucumberthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, 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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