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Cucumber Pickle

A preserved cucumber pickle made with brine, grape leaves, onions, red pepper, celery seed, mustard, alum, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and cure

  1. Soak cucumbers in strong salt brine overnight or for 24 hours.

  2. Boil the brine and pour it boiling over the cucumbers; let stand until cool.

  3. Drain the cucumbers and pour clean boiling water over them, placing them between layers of grape leaves.

  4. Let stand until cold, then wipe them dry and pack into jars with little onions and one red pepper per quart jar.

Pack and seal

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of celery seed, 1 tablespoon of mustard, and a lump of alum on top.

  2. Pour scalding hot vinegar over the packed jars and seal.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Main vegetable that becomes crisp-firm and absorbs the brine flavour during curing.
Strong salt brine
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them, helping them stay firm.
Scalding hot vinegar
Adds sourness and acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Soaking in strong brine. Brine must be strong enough to draw water out of the cucumbers; if it is weak, the pickles can soften and spoil. Pouring boiling brine and boiling water over them then helps firm the flesh and cleans the surface.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, pepper, celery, mustard, 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.

More cucumber pickle recipes

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