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Sweet Pickled Cucumbers

A sweet pickle made by brining cucumbers with sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Let the gherkins stand in strong brine (1 cup salt to 1 gallon water) for 24 hours.

  2. Cover the brine with equal parts vinegar and water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Pack and cover the jars

  1. Mix brown sugar, mustard seed, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, white pepper, horseradish, green peppers, onions, and garlic in a bowl.

  2. Layer the cucumbers and spice mixture in jars.

  3. Cover the jars with hot vinegar.

  4. Add a piece of alum to each jar to harden the pickles.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Gherkins
Form the crisp-textured body of the pickles that absorb the brine and spiced syrup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the pickling liquid, balancing the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during pickling.
White onions
Add mild sweetness and aroma that soften and flavour the pickling liquid.
Alum
Helps firm the cucumber texture so the pickles stay crisp.

The step that matters

Heating the vinegar mixture before covering the jars. Bringing the vinegar and water to a boil and pouring it hot helps seal and preserve the pickles, while cold liquid would leave them more open to spoilage.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, ginger, clove, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, cinnamon, ginger, clove, 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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