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Sliced Cucumber Pickle

Pickled sliced cucumbers preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sliced Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Place cucumbers in a jar or pail and cover with boiling water mixed with salt.

  2. Cover closely and repeat this process for three mornings.

Make the vinegar

  1. On the fourth morning, scald enough cider vinegar to cover the cucumbers.

  2. Add alum and horse-radish root to the vinegar.

  3. Tie mustard, cloves, and cinnamon in a small muslin bag and add to the vinegar.

Pack and seal

  1. Slice cucumbers into ½ inch thick pieces and place in glass jars.

  2. Pour the scalding vinegar mixture over the cucumbers and seal tightly.

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 + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 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

Cucumbers
Their firm flesh is the body of the pickle, softened and seasoned by the brine and vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Horse-radish root
Adds a pungent, sharp heat that deepens the flavour of the pickling liquid.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Keep the vinegar scalding when pouring it over the cucumbers. Pouring hot vinegar over the cucumbers helps the spices and flavours penetrate and warms the pieces, while sealing the jars while hot helps keep the pickles preserved. Letting the vinegar cool too much weakens this effect.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cider, vinegar, horse, radish, mustard, clove):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cider, vinegar, horse, radish, mustard, clove. 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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