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Pickled Mangoes

A preserved mango dish pickled with salt, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mangoes

  1. Soak the mangoes in salt water for two weeks.

  2. Soak them in pure water for two days, changing the water two or three times.

  3. Remove the seeds and layer grape leaves and mangoes in a kettle, covering with leaves.

  4. Add a lump of alum and pour vinegar over them, then boil for 10-15 minutes.

  5. Remove the leaves and let the pickles sit in the vinegar for a week.

Make the stuffing

  1. Prepare the stuffing by mixing ginger, black pepper, mace, allspice, turmeric, garlic, horseradish, black mustard seed, and white mustard seed with olive oil.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of brown sugar to each mango.

  3. Mix chopped cabbage, small onions, cucumbers, green tomatoes, and chopped imperfect mangoes with the spices.

  4. Stuff the mangoes with the mixture and tie them.

Pack and store

  1. Place them in a stone jar and pour over the best cider vinegar.

  2. Store in a bright, dry place until canned.

  3. After a month, add 3 pounds of brown sugar, adjusting to taste.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mango + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mangoes
Form the body of the pickle, absorbing salt and vinegar as they soften over the long soak.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and flavor to the stuffing.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent heat and a slightly bitter flavor to the stuffing.
Alum
Helps firm the mangoes so they keep their shape during boiling.

The step that matters

Boiling the mangoes with alum and vinegar. Boiling only 10 to 15 minutes is brief; boiling too long can soften the fruit to mush, while too short leaves it under-treated. Alum helps firm the fruit's texture during this heating.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, egg, vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, turmeric):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, egg, vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, turmeric. 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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