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Dessert

Mangoe Pickles

Pickled mangoes prepared with mustard seed, horseradish, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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 ↓

Mangoe Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mangoes

  1. Cut the mangoes in half and remove the seeds.

  2. Cover the mango halves with brine and leave for one week.

  3. Pare the mangoes thinly and simmer in a kettle of water lined with grape leaves until moderately soft.

Fill and pack

  1. Let the mangoes cool, then mix the filling ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Stuff the mangoes with the filling.

  3. Place the stuffed mangoes in a stone jar and pour over boiling vinegar mixed with dissolved brown sugar.

  4. Seal the jar tightly and store away. These pickles are best after one year.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green mangoes
Form the pickle body and stay firm enough to hold the filling through brining and simmering.
White mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the filling.
Horseradish
Adds sharp heat to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.

The step that matters

Simmering the pared mangoes. Simmer only until moderately soft. Overcooking breaks down the flesh so it cannot hold the filling, while undercooking leaves it too firm to stuff and absorb the flavours.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, egg, mustard, horseradish, sugar, celery, onion):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, egg, mustard, horseradish, sugar, celery, onion. 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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