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Pickle of Ripe Cucumbers

A pickle made from ripe cucumbers, vinegar, ginger, allspice, turmeric, horse-radish, mustard seeds, garlic, onions, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickle of Ripe Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Pare and split the cucumbers, remove the seeds, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Sun-dry the cucumbers until moderately dry.

  4. Wash the cucumbers with vinegar.

Make the pickle

  1. In a jar, layer the cucumbers with horse-radish, mustard seeds, garlic, and onions.

  2. Boil the vinegar with ginger, allspice, and turmeric.

  3. Let the vinegar mixture cool.

  4. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture over the cucumbers.

  5. Tie the jar tightly and store it away.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the pickle itself; salting and sun-drying remove moisture so they stay firm.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming them and helping preserve them.
Vinegar
Acid that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavour.
Ginger
Adds warm, peppery aroma to the spiced vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and an earthy flavour.
Mustard seeds
Contribute pungent flavour and aroma to the pickle.

The step that matters

Salting and sun-drying the cucumbers. Salt draws water out through osmosis and drying removes more moisture, so the cucumbers stay crisp rather than soft once the vinegar is added. Drying too little leaves them watery and dilutes the brine.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, allspice, turmeric, horse, radish, 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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