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Preserved Cucumbers

A sweet pickled cucumber preserved in brine and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Preserved Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Quarter large cucumbers.

  2. Leave small cucumbers whole.

  3. Place cucumbers in a wide-mouthed pot.

  4. Cover with strong brine.

  5. Lay a cabbage leaf on top to keep them submerged.

  6. Cover the pot with paper.

  7. Set the pot in a warm place until cucumbers turn yellow.

Green and rinse

  1. Heat cucumbers in fresh salt-and-water, covered with a cabbage leaf, without boiling.

  2. Once they are green, remove from heat.

  3. Let cool in the liquid.

  4. Change the water several times to remove excess salt.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. Make syrup by boiling 1 pound of sugar, 1 ounce of ginger, and lemon peel in 1 pint of water until thickened.

  2. Drain cucumbers.

  3. Place them in a jar.

  4. Pour cooled syrup over them.

  5. Check the cucumbers after a few days.

  6. Reheat the syrup if necessary.

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

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

  2. Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 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 bulk of the pickle and absorb the brine and syrup as they soften.
Strong brine
Draws out water and seasons the cucumbers, firming their texture during fermentation.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and balances the salt and acidity of the brine.
Scraped ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Heat without boiling. Boiling the cucumbers in the salted water can turn them soft and mushy. Keeping the liquid just below a boil firms the flesh and lets it take on salt gently.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, sugar, ginger, lemon. 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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