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Spiced Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using apple vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, spices, horseradish, lemons, onions, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Combine ½ gallon apple vinegar, brown sugar, white mustard seed, Lexington mustard, black pepper, cloves, celery seed, allspice, and grated nutmeg in a large pot; boil together.

  2. Add the remaining apple vinegar, scraped horseradish, sliced lemons, and sliced onions that have been sprinkled with salt and drained for a day.

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. If using fresh cucumbers, soak them in strong salt water for 24 hours, then wipe dry and submerge in plain vinegar for 2 weeks.

  2. After 2 weeks, drain the cucumbers for a day and then add them to the spiced vinegar mixture.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apple vinegar
Provides the acidic liquid that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavour and a slight crunch to the brine.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, warming heat that carries through the long pickling period.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows and spreads through the brine over time.
Onions
Contribute savoury body and aroma to the brine after salting and draining.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the cucumbers before pickling. Soaking fresh cucumbers in strong salt water draws out moisture and firms the flesh, so they stay crisp rather than turning soft. Draining them afterward removes excess salt and water so the spiced vinegar is not diluted.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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