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Pickled Mangoes

Pickled mangoes are muskmelons preserved with brine, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 ↓

Pickled Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Cut a round piece from the top of each muskmelon and remove the seeds.

  2. Tie the pieces back on with thread and soak in strong brine for 10 days.

  3. Drain and wipe the melons.

  4. Place them in a kettle with nice leaves underneath and on top.

  5. Add a small piece of alum.

  6. Heat over a slow fire until they turn green, keeping them tightly covered.

Fill and pickle

  1. Prepare a filling by mixing horseradish, white and black mustard seeds, mace, nutmeg, green ginger, black pepper, turmeric, and sweet oil.

  2. Fill each melon with the mixture.

  3. Add a small clove of garlic to each.

  4. Replace the top pieces.

  5. Sew them back on with strong thread.

  6. Place the filled mangoes in stone jars.

  7. Pour boiling vinegar over 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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Alum
Helps the melons firm up and turn green while they are heated.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp pungency that gives the pickle its characteristic bite.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp pungency that gives the pickle its characteristic bite.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the melons and gives the pickle its tang.
Turmeric
Adds a yellow colour and earthy aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Heating until the melons turn green. Heating over a slow fire while tightly covered lets the melons soften and take on colour gradually. Too much heat or an uncovered pot can scorch or overcook them, and the pieces may lose their shape.

Swap the musk melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, mustard, mace, nutmeg, ginger, pepper, turmeric):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Musk melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, mustard, mace, nutmeg, ginger, pepper, turmeric. 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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