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To Pickle Gherkins

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,874 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean and wash the gherkins, then cut off the stalks.

  2. Place them in a jar with coarse sea salt and stir occasionally for even salting.

  3. Leave the gherkins in the salt for 1-2 days.

  4. Discard the brine, return the gherkins to the jar, and add vinegar and more salt.

  5. The next day, discard this brine and replace it with fresh vinegar, tarragon, small onions, garlic, allspice, cloves, and whole peppercorns.

  6. To perfect the gherkins after a week, remove the vinegar and refill with fresh vinegar, adding more spices and pepper.

  7. Cover the jar tightly to keep out air, which can spoil the gherkins' taste and appearance.

  8. Optionally, add ripe red capsicums for improved flavor.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tarragon + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Clove + capsicumtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, tarragon, garlic, allspice, clove, capsicum. 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).

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