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Cucumber Preserves

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 973 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak cucumbers in strong brine for one week.

  2. Wash cucumbers and soak in clear water for 24 hours, changing the water four times.

  3. Line a bell metal kettle with grapevine leaves and place cucumbers inside with a little alum.

  4. Cover with vine leaves and fill the kettle with clear water, then cover closely.

  5. Simmer until cucumbers are well greened, then transfer to ice water until cold.

  6. Wipe cucumbers and slit down one side to remove seeds.

  7. Stuff cucumbers with a mixture of chopped raisins and citron, then sew up the slit.

  8. Weigh the stuffed cucumbers.

  9. Make a syrup with 1 pound of sugar, 1 pound of cucumbers, and 1 pint of water; heat to boiling and skim.

  10. Drop in the cucumbers and simmer for half an hour.

  11. Spread cucumbers on a dish in the sun and boil down the syrup with a few slices of ginger root until thick.

  12. Return cucumbers to the syrup, simmer for five minutes, and then place in glass jars, sealing when cool.

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. Cucumber + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together973 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Cucumber + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,112 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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