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Rough and Ready Pickle

A pickle of cucumbers, onions, and green peppers seasoned with spices and vinegar.

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 ↓

Rough and Ready Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel and slice the cucumbers, onions, and green peppers.

  2. Chop all ingredients finely and sprinkle with salt.

  3. Let it stand for 24 hours, then hang in a bag to drain overnight.

Spice and pickle

  1. For each gallon of pickle, add brown sugar, mustard seed, cloves, mace, cinnamon, celery seed, turmeric, and ground allspice in a muslin bag.

  2. Cover with vinegar and bring to a boil.

  3. Seal while hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the bulk of the pickle and provide its crisp, watery texture.
Salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, helping them drain and firm up.
White onions
Add bulk and a mild sharpness that mellows during pickling.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar with sweetness and adds depth of flavor.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor that carries through the brine.

The step that matters

Draining after salting. Salting and draining the chopped vegetables removes excess water, so the pickle stays crisp rather than diluting the vinegar brine and turning soft.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, onion, pepper, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, onion, pepper, sugar, mustard, clove, cinnamon. 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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