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Pickles

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 6 quarts of water with 1 pint of coarse salt until clear, then let it cool.

  2. Soak the pickles in the brine for several hours.

  3. Prepare alum-water by dissolving 1 teaspoon of alum in 1 quart of water, then boil.

  4. Scald the pickles in the alum-water for several hours without boiling.

  5. Remove the pickles and place them in ice-cold water until completely cold.

  6. If using grape-vine leaves, layer them with the pickles in a kettle, then pour the alum-water over them.

  7. Heat the kettle slowly until it reaches a scald, keeping it covered.

  8. After several hours, remove the pickles and place them in ice-cold water again.

  9. Prepare the vinegar-pickle using pure, strong cider vinegar.

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

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

  2. Cider + grapetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Vinegar + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

Swap the grape

The recipe marks grape as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Currantfits about as well
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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