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Cucumber Pickles

Cucumbers are preserved by brining, then boiled in vinegar with spices and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak cucumbers in brine for 2–3 weeks.

  2. Drain cucumbers and soak them in water for 24 hours, changing the water once.

Scald and pack

  1. Combine 2 pints of vinegar and 1 pint of water.

  2. Scald cucumbers in the vinegar–water mixture for 2 weeks.

  3. Drain cucumbers and pack them in a jar, layering with grated horseradish and black mustard seed.

Spice and pour

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the cucumbers, adding 1 ounce each of cloves, white mustard seed, sliced ginger, coriander seed, mace, and 1 teacup of black pepper.

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

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

Cucumbers
Are the main vegetable, becoming firm and crisp-tender as they cure and pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Grated horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows as the pickle matures.
Black mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that infuses into the vinegar and cucumbers.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Scalding in the vinegar–water mixture. Soaking cucumbers in brine and then water removes salt and excess moisture, and the long scald in acidic liquid must be done gently so they stay firm rather than turning soft. Acid and salt are what keep the pickle preserved, so the brine and vinegar strength should not be cut short.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, horseradish, mustard, clove, ginger, coriander):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, horseradish, mustard, clove, ginger, coriander. 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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