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Preserve

Cucumber Pickles

A pickled cucumber recipe using brine, cider vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, cinnamon, alum, cloves, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cucumber Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Dissolve 1 pint of coarse sea salt in 6 quarts of water to make a brine.

  2. Boil the brine and pour it hot over the cucumbers.

  3. Let the cucumbers soak in the brine for 1 week to 1 month.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Combine 2 gallons of cider vinegar and 1 quart of brown sugar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture and skim carefully.

  3. Add ½ pint of white mustard seed, 1 ounce of broken stick cinnamon, 1 ounce of alum, ½ ounce of whole cloves, and ½ ounce of black peppercorns to the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  5. Pour the hot mixture over the cucumbers.

Rest and use

  1. Soak the cucumbers in cold water for 2 days before using.

  2. Use the cucumbers after 1 week.

  3. In 1 month, scald the vinegar again and pour it over the cucumbers.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 is preserved and flavoured by the brine and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and seasons them during the brine soak.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the cucumbers and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and depth.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour to the spiced vinegar.
Alum
Helps the cucumbers stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Pour the hot spiced vinegar over the cucumbers. The vinegar must be brought to a full boil so it is hot enough to penetrate and preserve the cucumbers. Skimming removes impurities that could spoil the pickle.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Radishfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

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