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Damson Pickle

A preserved pickle made from damsons, sugar, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Damson Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced syrup

  1. Place the cloves and cinnamon in a muslin bag.

  2. Boil the bag with the sugar and vinegar for one hour.

Combine and boil

  1. Mix the liquid thoroughly with the damsons.

  2. Boil the mixture for one hour and bottle while hot.

Bottle and rest

  1. Alternatively, fill vacuum cover bottles with the mixture and sterilize for one hour at a temperature above 190°F (88°C).

  2. Remove the cloves from the bottles after 48 hours.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + malttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit base, with their flesh and tartness forming the body of the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the syrup as it boils, helping to preserve the fruit.
Malt vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and helps preserve the pickle.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent aroma to the syrup as it steeps.
Cinnamon
Adds a sweet, warm aroma that rounds out the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Bottle while hot. The mixture must be boiling hot when bottled. Heat drives air from the jars and helps create a seal, while the high sugar and acid levels help keep the pickle from spoiling.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, malt, vinegar. 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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