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Pickled Beet-Roots

A pickled beetroot dish preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pickled Beet-Roots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beets

  1. Wash the beet roots in cold water with a soft brush, being careful not to break the skin.

  2. Boil the roots in a saucepan of water until tender, then remove and let them dry overnight.

  3. Peel the roots and slice them into ¼-inch thick slices, discarding the ends.

  4. Cut the slices into decorative shapes and place them in jars.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine mace, peppercorns, coarse sea salt, ginger, horseradish, and vinegar.

  2. Boil for 10-15 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  3. Allow the pickle to cool, then pour it over the beet slices in the jars.

Rest and mature

  1. Replenish any absorbed pickle the next day and cover the jars with bladder and leather.

  2. Let the pickles sit for a month before using.

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. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Ginger + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together676 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Mace + horseradishtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beet roots
Provide the main body, sweet earthy flavour and the deep red colour of the pickle.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the beets and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy character.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the pickle and helps draw out and preserve flavour in the brine.
Horseradish
Adds pungent, sharp heat that cuts through the sweetness of the beets.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that rounds out the pickle's flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the beets until tender without breaking the skin. Beets bleed their red pigment and lose colour and texture if the skin is torn before cooking. Cooking until just tender, then drying, lets the flesh soften evenly while keeping the pickle clear and the slices firm enough to hold their shape.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, horseradish, 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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