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Green Pickled Cucumbers. No. 1.

A method of pickling small cucumbers in a brine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Green Pickled Cucumbers. No. 1.

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the cucumbers

  1. Gather small cucumbers with a short stem and place them in a strong saltwater brine that can float an egg.

  2. Cover the brine and let the cucumbers soak for three days, removing scum with a flannel rag each morning.

  3. On the third day, pour the brine into a clean brass kettle and bring it to a boil.

  4. Pour the hot brine over the cucumbers and repeat this process for three mornings.

  5. After scalding them nine times, let the cucumbers drain on dishes until cold.

Make the spiced vinegar and pack

  1. In a porcelain kettle, add enough vinegar to cover the cucumbers based on the size of your jar.

  2. Add allspice, cloves, cinnamon, mace, green pepper, horseradish root, raw ginger, mustard seeds, and sugar.

  3. Boil the mixture well and pour it hot over the pickles, then seal the jar tightly.

  4. Once completely cool, check the vinegar level and add more if necessary to fill the jar to the brim.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Small cucumbers
Firm base vegetable that softens and absorbs the brine and spiced vinegar flavours.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brine soak.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Horseradish root
Adds pungent heat that mellows during the long pickling.

The step that matters

Repeated scalding of the brine. Pouring the hot brine over the cucumbers each morning, with the brine brought to a boil, helps drive off scum and keep the pickles from spoiling during the long soak. Skipping mornings or letting the brine cool too far weakens this process.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, pepper, horseradish. 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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