Name: Ripe Cucumber Pickle
Ingredients: 6 pounds seed cucumbers; 1 pound brown sugar; 1 tablespoon cloves; 1 tablespoon allspice; 1 tablespoon pepper; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); vinegar (enough to cover)

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Ripe Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Remove seeds from the cucumbers and cut them into strips.
In a large pot, combine the cucumbers, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, pepper, cinnamon, and coarse sea salt.
Cover the mixture with vinegar and bring to a boil.
Cook until the cucumbers are tender.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Seed cucumbers: Provide the bulk of the pickle, becoming tender as they cook in the spiced vinegar.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar: Acidity preserves the pickle and sharpens the flavour of the spices and sugar.

Swap the cucumber

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

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Horseradishfits about as well
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, allspice, pepper, cinnamon, 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.