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Plum Pickles

A sweet and sour pickle made by boiling plums in vinegar and sugar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Plum Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a large pot, combine vinegar, brown sugar, and spices.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Pour and repeat

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the plums.

  2. Repeat this process for three consecutive mornings.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
The main fruit, which takes up the spiced syrup over repeated pourings.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the syrup.
Allspice
Adds warm, peppery aroma to the syrup.
Cloves
Adds strong, aromatic warmth to the syrup.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the plums. The syrup must be hot when poured, and the repeated pourings over several days let the sugar, acid and spices penetrate the fruit gradually rather than all at once.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

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