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Dessert

Pickled Damsons

Pickled damsons are plums preserved in a sugar and vinegar syrup with cloves and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Pickled Damsons

Ingredients

Directions

Pack the jar

  1. Layer damsons and spices in a jar until nearly full.

  2. Boil sugar and vinegar together, then pour over the fruit.

Boil and repack

  1. Boil the syrup for the next three days.

  2. Pour the boiled syrup over the damsons.

  3. Remove everything from the jar.

  4. Bring the contents to a boil.

  5. Return the damsons to the jar.

Seal and cool

  1. Cover the jar with a plate.

  2. Let cool.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Main fruit that gives the pickle its body and tart plum flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp flavour and helps preserve it.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup and fruit.
Cinnamon
Adds a sweet, warm aroma that complements the fruit and syrup.

The step that matters

Bring the contents to a boil. Heating the fruit too long breaks down its cell structure, so the damsons turn soft and mushy instead of holding their shape in the syrup.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

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