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Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, mustard, celery seed, salt, sugar, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Wash the little cucumbers and place them in a crock.

  2. Pour boiling water over the cucumbers and let them stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the cucumbers and pack them in glass jars with pieces of red peppers and small white onions.

Make the brine and seal

  1. In a pot, boil 1 gallon of white wine vinegar with 3 teaspoons of mustard, 3 teaspoons of celery seed, 1 cup of coarse sea salt, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of powdered alum.

  2. Once boiling, pour the mixture over the cucumbers in the jars and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Little cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickles, becoming crisp and firm as they are packed and covered.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acid that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw water out of the cucumbers for a firmer texture.
Powdered alum
Helps keep the cucumbers firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling brine over the cucumbers. The brine must be fully boiling when poured so the hot liquid heats the contents and helps seal the jars safely. Cool or weak brine can leave the pickles less preserved and more prone to spoilage.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, pepper, white wine, vinegar, mustard, celery, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, pepper, white wine, vinegar, mustard, celery, sugar. 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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