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To Prepare Vinegar for Cucumber Pickles

A vinegar mixture with mustard seeds, horseradish, onions, sugar, celery seed, peppercorns, allspice, and cinnamon for cucumber pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Prepare Vinegar for Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the allspice, cinnamon, and black peppercorns together until well broken up.

  2. Scrape and cut the horseradish.

Combine and rest

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large container and stir well to mix thoroughly.

  2. Let the mixture sit for a few days to develop flavors.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that makes the brine work as a pickling liquid.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
Black mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor to the brine.
White mustard seed
Adds a milder mustard flavor and a bit of bite.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that intensifies as the brine rests.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and aroma to the brine.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit for a few days. Resting lets the vinegar slowly draw out and blend the flavors of the spices, sugar, and aromatics. Rushing this step leaves the brine harsh and unbalanced.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, mustard, horseradish, sugar, celery, allspice. 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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