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Cucumber Pickles

A brined cucumber pickle made with cider vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine and soak

  1. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Add fresh cucumbers to the brine.

  3. Soak cucumbers in fresh water for two days, changing the water once.

Pickle

  1. In a griddle pan, heat 1 quart of cider vinegar with spices and sugar to taste.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes and pour over the cucumbers.

  3. Let pickles sit overnight before using.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Cucumber + cidertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together572 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle and take on the flavour of the brine and vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Spices
Add aroma and flavour to the vinegar that soaks into the cucumbers.

The step that matters

Making the brine strong enough to float an egg. A brine that is too weak will not draw enough water out of the cucumbers or protect them during the two-day soak, so they can soften or spoil before the vinegar is added.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

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

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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