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Green Cucumber Pickles

Pickles made by soaking cucumbers in a brine of salt, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Green Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Dissolve the salt in enough hot water to cover the cucumbers and pour over them while boiling hot.

  2. Let stand for twenty-four hours.

  3. Reheat the brine for three successive mornings.

Scald and spice

  1. On the fourth morning, drain the brine and pour boiling water over the cucumbers to cover; let stand for another twenty-four hours.

  2. If the cucumbers are plump, place them in a jar and add the spices in bags.

  3. Heat vinegar enough to cover the cucumbers with a piece of alum and pour it over 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 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 pickle itself; their firm flesh softens slowly as the brine works through them.
Coarse salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and preserves them in the brine.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickles.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the spiced liquid.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Reheating the brine each morning. Brining relies on salt slowly drawing water out and firming the cucumbers. Repeated heating keeps the brine hot and active while the cucumbers gradually take up flavor, so letting it cool or skipping mornings weakens the process.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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