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Pickled Cucumbers

Pickled cucumbers are cucumbers preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in brine.

  2. Boil cucumbers in strong salt water covered with cabbage leaves for 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer cucumbers to cold water.

  4. Bring cucumbers to a boil in a mixture of ⅓ vinegar and ⅔ water.

  5. Drain cucumbers well.

Make the pickling liquid and pack

  1. In a kettle, combine vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and ground mustard.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then pour it over the cucumbers in jars.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, warm aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Adds a blended, warm spice aroma to the pickling liquid.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp pungency that complements the vinegar and spices.

The step that matters

Drain cucumbers well. Excess water left on the cucumbers dilutes the hot pickling liquid in the jars, weakening its acidity and flavour and reducing how well the pickle keeps.

“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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