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Dessert

Pickled Peaches

A preserved fruit dish made by boiling peaches in a sugared vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Wipe the peaches with a flannel until smooth.

  2. Stick a few cloves in each peach.

Make the pickling vinegar

  1. In a pot, combine 1 pound of sugar with 3 pints of vinegar and scald the mixture.

  2. Add the peaches to the vinegar and boil until nearly soft.

  3. Remove the peaches.

  4. Boil the vinegar a little longer.

  5. Pour the hot vinegar over the peaches.

Brine and finish

  1. Prepare a strong brine.

  2. Soak the peaches for 3 to 4 days.

  3. Remove the peaches.

  4. Wipe them dry.

  5. Place the peaches in a pot with allspice, black pepper, ginger, and horseradish.

  6. Boil some turmeric in the vinegar.

  7. Pour the hot turmeric-infused vinegar over the peaches.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the sweet-sour pickling liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidifies the liquid, flavouring the fruit and helping preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil the peaches until nearly soft. Peaches that are overcooked collapse and lose their shape, while undercooked ones stay firm and resist absorbing the pickling liquid. Stopping at nearly soft lets them hold together through the long soak.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, allspice, pepper, ginger, horseradish. 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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