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Cucumber Pickles

A preserved cucumber dish made with vinegar, sugar, spices, and 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. Prepare a hot salt brine and pour it over the cucumbers.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, rinse the cucumbers in clear water.

Scald

  1. Mix one part vinegar with two parts water to cover the cucumbers. Bring to a boil and scald the cucumbers for five minutes.

  2. Drain the cucumbers and place them in cans.

Make the syrup and seal

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

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers in the cans and seal them.

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
The main vegetable that softens in the brine and becomes the pickle itself.
Salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during brining, firming their texture.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during processing.

The step that matters

Scalding the cucumbers in the vinegar mixture. Boiling for only the stated time must be followed carefully; too long softens the cucumbers, while too short leaves them underprocessed. Keeping the cucumbers firm depends on the brine rinse and gentle heat.

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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