Thick rounds of cucumber with dark green skins and thin rings of shallot in a little spiced brown vinegar, in a shallow cream stoneware bowl. — Thick cucumber slices and shallot rings in spiced malt vinegar.

Cucumbers in Slices (1769)

Name: Sliced Cucumbers in Spiced Malt Vinegar
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 1 h 45 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 400 g cucumber; 30 g shallot; 1 tsp salt; 150 ml malt vinegar; 100 ml cold water; ½ tsp finely grated fresh ginger; 1 tsp finely grated fresh horseradish; ⅛ tsp ground white pepper; 1 pinch ground mace

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Elizabeth Raffald’s sliced cucumbers, 1769: salted and drained with shallots, then dressed in malt vinegar with ginger, horseradish and mace.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 31, 2026

Recipe makes: 4 side servings
Prep: 15 min
Total: 1 hr 45 min

Prep is the slicing and mixing. Total time adds 1 hour for the salted slices to drain and 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Serve the same day.

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Thick cucumber slices and shallot rings in spiced malt vinegar.

The story behind the recipe

These are Elizabeth Raffald’s sliced cucumbers, cut a quarter of an inch thick, layered with shallots and salted to drain, then dressed with spiced ale vinegar. In The Experienced English House-keeper (Manchester, 1769) she put them in a stone jar, poured the vinegar on boiling hot, let it go cold, and did it “three Times more” before tying the jar down with a bladder.

Why did Raffald’s cucumbers need no brass?

Because the hot vinegar did the work. Two pages earlier, Raffald’s chapter on pickling opens with a warning that cooks green their pickles in brass pans “for the Sake of having them a good Green,” and that they would green as well by heating the liquor. Her whole cucumbers show what she meant. They sit in strong salt water “nine or ten Days, or ‘till they are quite Yellow,” and are brought back to green over three days kept warm by the fire, with the allegar boiled again every day, “‘till they be a good Green.” The sliced ones skip the brine and go straight into stone.

Allegar is ale vinegar. For her kidney beans Raffald allows either white wine vinegar or “fine Ale Allegar”; for these slices she wants it strong.

Half a century later, the chemist Fredrick Accum quoted Raffald by name in his 1820 Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons as telling cooks to green pickles with halfpence or a day in copper or brass. That sentence is not on the pages he cited in her editions of 1769, 1771 or 1782. The case, and her own brass pan elsewhere in the chapter, are in What Was in the Pot Accum Warned About in 1820?

Making it today

Raffald’s four boiling pours made a pickle to keep; this is a salad for the same day, dressed cold so the slices stay crisp, and kept in the refrigerator until it goes to the table. Malt vinegar is the nearest thing in shops to strong ale allegar. Salting and draining the slices with the shallot follows her, cut down from four or five hours to one. Fresh horseradish and ginger are grated in place of scraped and sliced, and the mace and pepper are ground, so nothing needs fishing out. Green Beans in Spiced Vinegar (1769), from two pages on, makes a second dish from the same chapter.

Get your Cucumbers large before the Seeds are ripe, slice them a quarter of an Inch thick, then lay them on a Hair Sieve, and betwixt every Lay put a Shalot or two, throw on a little Salt, let them stand four or five Hours to drain, then put them in a Stone Jar, take as much strong Ale Allegar as will cover them, boil it five Minutes, with a Blade or two of Mace, a few White Pepper Corns, a little Ginger sliced, and some Horse-radish scraped, then pour it boiling hot upon your Cucumbers, let them stand ‘till they are cold, do so for three Times more; let it go cold betwixt every Time, then tie them down with a Bladder for Use.

Elizabeth RaffaldThe Experienced English House-keeper (Manchester: J. Harrop, for the author, 1769), To pickle Cucumbers in Slices, p. 323

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Ingredients

For 4 side servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 4 side servings.

Cucumber400 g
Shallot30 g
Salt1 tsp
Malt vinegar150 ml
Cold water100 ml
Finely grated fresh ginger1/2 tsp
Finely grated fresh horseradish1 tsp
Ground white pepper1/8 tsp
Ground mace1 pinch

Ingredients as written here

400 g cucumber
30 g shallot
1 tsp salt
150 ml malt vinegar
100 ml cold water
½ tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp finely grated fresh horseradish
⅛ tsp ground white pepper
1 pinch ground mace

Equipment

Sharp knife or mandoline
Sieve or colander set over a bowl
Glass or stainless steel bowl
Fine grater
Slotted spoon

Instructions

Wash the cucumber and slice it into rounds about 6 mm (¼ inch) thick. Peel the shallot and slice it into thin rings.
Lay a third of the cucumber in the sieve over the bowl, scatter a third of the shallot over it and sprinkle with a third of the salt. Repeat twice more. Leave to drain for 1 hour.
In the glass or stainless steel bowl, stir together the malt vinegar, water, ginger, horseradish, white pepper and mace.
Shake the sieve to drain off the last of the liquid and tip the cucumber and shallot into the vinegar. Toss well.
Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes, tossing once. Serve cold, the same day, with a slotted spoon.

Nutrition

25calories per serving

Recipe makes: 4 side servings
Servings: 4

Estimated per serving (4) from USDA FoodData Central values for cucumber with peel, shallot and malt vinegar.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Raffald gives no quantities beyond a shallot or two between each layer. Keep the vinegar and water at three parts to two.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Our changes from Raffald: one hour of draining in place of four or five; malt vinegar diluted with water for strong ale allegar; the dressing mixed cold, once, in place of four boiling pours with cooling between; ground mace and white pepper and grated ginger and horseradish in place of whole and sliced; a glass or stainless bowl in the refrigerator in place of a stone jar tied down with a bladder; all quantities ours. It is a fresh salad that does not keep: serve it the day it is made and keep it cold until then. For softer slices nearer to hers, bring the dressing to a boil in a stainless steel pan, pour it over, cool and chill as above.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.