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Cucumber Chips or Bread and Butter Pickles

A pickle made by brining cucumbers, then boiling them in a sweet vinegar mixture with mustard seed, celery seed, and turmeric.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 Chips or Bread and Butter Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the cucumbers

  1. Cut fresh green cucumbers crosswise, unpeeled.

  2. Prepare a light brine with 1-2 lbs coarse sea salt in 1 gallon water.

  3. Cover the brine and let stand overnight.

  4. Drain the cucumbers.

Scald

  1. Make a liquor of equal parts vinegar and water.

  2. Scald the pickles in this mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the pickles.

Make the pickling liquid and pack

  1. Dissolve 6 lbs brown sugar in 1 quart of water and 3 quarts vinegar.

  2. Add mustard seed, celery seed, and ground turmeric to the mixture.

  3. Drain the pickles again.

  4. Pack the pickles in jars.

  5. Bring the vinegar mixture to a boil.

  6. Pour the hot vinegar over the pickles.

  7. Seal the jars.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh green cucumbers
Form the crisp, firm body of the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers so they stay firmer during pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and defines the pickle's tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma and flavor to the brine.
Ground turmeric
Gives the pickles their characteristic yellow colour.

The step that matters

Scalding the pickles. Scalding for 10 minutes heats the salted cucumbers enough to soften their cell walls. Too long in the hot liquid makes them limp, so timing controls how crisp they stay.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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