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Fine Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, salt, sugar, horseradish, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fine Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Mix vinegar, salt, sugar, horseradish, and ground mustard in a bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture into a 4‑gallon crock.

Pack and sit

  1. Wash and wipe the cucumbers, then add them to the crock until it is full.

  2. Cover the cucumbers with a plate.

  3. Let the pickles sit for 3 to 4 days, stirring occasionally.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Dill + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

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

  3. Dill + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Dill + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together560 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

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickles their tang.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the vinegar and rounds out the brine's flavour.
Grated horseradish
Adds a pungent, sharp heat that flavours the brine and the cucumbers.
Ground mustard
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that deepens the brine.
Small dill cucumbers
The main vegetable, which absorbs the brine's acidity and flavour as it sits.

The step that matters

Let the pickles sit for 3 to 4 days, stirring occasionally. The cucumbers must stay fully submerged and in contact with the brine so acidity and salt reach every piece. Occasional stirring evens out the brine and helps prevent uneven or spoiled spots.

Swap the dill

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, sugar, horseradish, mustard):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Dillthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, sugar, horseradish, mustard. 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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