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Mrs. E. D. Preston's Pickling Spice

A pickling spice mixture made with onions, vinegar, pepper, mustard, cloves, nutmeg, sugar, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mrs. E. D. Preston's Pickling Spice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onion liquid

  1. Boil the chopped onions or shallots in water for two hours.

  2. Strain the liquid through a coarse mesh sieve.

  3. Return the liquid to the kettle and add the cider vinegar.

Make the spice mixture

  1. Mix in the black pepper, mustard, ground cloves, nutmeg, brown sugar, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil the mixture for two hours, stirring continuously to prevent burning.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle, cork, and seal tightly to exclude air.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions or shallots
Boiled for two hours to build a savory base in the liquid.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the pickling liquid its sharp flavor and preserving character.
Black pepper
Adds pungent heat and sharp aroma to the spice blend.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor and aroma to the blend.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses notes that balance the vinegar's acidity.
Ground cloves
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the blend.

The step that matters

Stirring during the second boil. Sugar-rich mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of a pot as the water evaporates. Constant stirring prevents the sugars from caramelizing and burning, which would give a bitter, dark taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, clove, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, pepper, mustard, clove, nutmeg, sugar. 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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