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Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using vinegar, sugar, spices, and hot brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Pour hot salt brine over cucumbers and let stand overnight.

  2. Rinse cucumbers in clear water.

Scald

  1. Mix one part vinegar with two parts water to cover cucumbers, bring to a boil.

  2. Drop cucumbers into the boiling mixture and let scald for five minutes.

  3. Drain cucumbers and place in jars.

Pickle and seal

  1. In a pot, combine white wine vinegar, sugar, mixed spices, chopped red pepper, and alum, and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers in jars and seal.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 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
Form the pickle body, becoming crisp-tender when brined and scalded.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Alum
Helps cucumbers stay firm during the hot brining and pickling.

The step that matters

Scalding the cucumbers. Scalding for only the stated five minutes softens the cucumbers enough to absorb the brine while keeping them firm. Overcooking turns them soft and mushy, and the acidity must be strong enough to keep the jars safe.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, white wine, 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.

More cucumber pickles recipes

Sweet 23Green 9Spiced 9Small 7Sliced 6Sour 5 See all 334 →

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