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To Pickle Gherkins

This recipe preserves gherkins in a vinegar brine with cloves, peppercorns, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,400 recipes mention both. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put gherkins in a coarse cloth with salt and shake to remove outer skin.

  2. Pick gherkins from salt and place in a pan.

Pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with cloves, peppercorns, and mace until it covers gherkins.

  2. Pour boiled vinegar over gherkins and let it cool.

  3. Once cold, transfer gherkins to jars and cover with bladders.

  4. Store jars in a cool place.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acidifies and preserves the gherkins, keeping them firm and tangy.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and loosens the outer skin of the gherkins.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Jamaica peppercorns
Adds aromatic, peppery spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove):

  1. Allspicebetter flavor fit
  2. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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