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Sweet Pickles

A preserved fruit mixture sweetened with sugar and vinegar, spiced with cloves and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit and syrup

  1. Boil the fruit, sugar, vinegar, cloves, and allspice together for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove the fruit.

  3. Boil the syrup until thick.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the thick syrup over the fruit in jars.

  2. Seal the jars tightly.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Fruit
Forms the bulk of the pickles and soaks up the syrup, becoming sweet and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickles and thickens the syrup, which helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup and fruit.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor that complements the cloves.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar concentration thickens the syrup as water evaporates. Syrup that stays thin will not coat the fruit well or preserve it as effectively, so it should be reduced until it is noticeably thick before pouring.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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