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Cucumbers

A method of preserving cucumbers by soaking in saltwater, adding spices, and sealing with boiling cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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 ↓

Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash cucumbers carefully.

  2. Soak cucumbers in a mixture of salt and water for 24 hours.

  3. Drain and place cucumbers in glass jars with glass tops.

  4. Add spices to each jar.

Pickle and seal

  1. Fill jars with boiling cider vinegar and seal immediately.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + cassiatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers (in the method)
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming crisp or tender depending on brining and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers during the soak, firming them and seasoning the brine.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its tangy flavour.
Whole cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Fill jars with boiling cider vinegar and seal immediately. Boiling vinegar helps drive off air and heat the jar contents, while sealing right away traps the pickle inside. Delay lets the jars cool and air in, which can weaken the seal and invite spoilage.

Swap the cassia

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, mustard, allspice, pepper, horseradish, cider, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, mustard, allspice, pepper, horseradish, cider, 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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