Name: Pickled Plums
Ingredients: plums; vinegar; salt; mustard seed

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

plums
vinegar
salt
mustard seed

Directions

Gather plums just as they begin to turn.
Measure enough vinegar to cover the plums, allowing for evaporation.
Add salt and mustard seed to the vinegar and heat to boiling.
Cover the plums with the hot vinegar mixture and let stand overnight.
In the morning, heat the vinegar again and pour it over the plums a second time.
Set the plums away to 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.

Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Plum + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together158 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).