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Cucumber Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made by boiling cucumbers in a sugar and vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cucumber Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Dissolve the alum in the water.

  2. Add the cucumbers and boil for 1 hour, then drain.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, and mace to make a syrup.

  2. Add the cucumbers to the syrup and boil until transparent.

  3. If the syrup is not thick enough, continue boiling after removing the fruit.

Jar and seal

  1. Once cold, place the cucumbers in jars and sprinkle with mustard seed.

  2. Pour the syrup over the cucumbers and seal the jars.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together874 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and translucent as they cook in the syrup.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, with the boiling, thickens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp flavor and helps preserve it.
Alum
Firms the cucumber flesh so it stays crisp through long cooking.

The step that matters

Boiling the cucumbers in the syrup until transparent. Boiling too briefly leaves the cucumbers opaque and under-infused, while overboiling can make them soft and mushy. Watching for transparency signals that the sugar has penetrated the flesh and the texture is right.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, mustard):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, mustard. 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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