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Auburn Cucumber Pickles

Pickled cucumbers preserved in a vinegar, sugar, pepper, alum, and mustard seed brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Auburn Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Rinse cucumbers carefully to avoid bruising the skins.

  2. Pack cucumbers in a jar, layering with salt.

  3. Cover with boiling water and let stand for 24 hours.

  4. Drain and dry cucumbers with a soft towel.

Make the brine and pack

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine vinegar, sugar, chopped peppers, alum, and mustard seed.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour over the cucumbers.

  3. Store pickles in glass jars or a stone jar, placing a horseradish or grape leaf on top to prevent mold.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the crisp, bulky body of the pickle that the brine permeates.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers, firming them and helping preserve texture.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Alum
Helps cucumbers stay firm during pickling.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, aromatic flavour to the brine.

The step that matters

Rinse cucumbers carefully. Bruised skins let the brine and spoilage microbes penetrate unevenly, leading to soft spots and faster spoilage in the finished pickles.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Radishfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard. 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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