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Pickled Mangoes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Select large cucumbers, cut them before they ripen, and remove seeds.

  2. Soak cucumbers in a strong saltwater brine for 10 days until yellow.

  3. Layer cucumbers with fresh vine leaves in a pan.

  4. Dissolve powdered alum in the brine and pour over cucumbers.

  5. Heat the pan over moderate heat for 4 hours without boiling.

  6. Drain cucumbers and let them cool.

  7. Stuff each cucumber with horse-radish, mustard seed, garlic, and peppercorns.

  8. Replace the cut piece and stitch it closed with green silk.

  9. Combine black peppercorns, long pepper, sliced ginger, mustard seed, garlic, mace, cloves, and vinegar in a pot and boil for 8 minutes.

  10. Pour the cooled pickle over the cucumbers in a deep jar and seal tightly with bladder and leather.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ginger, mustard, garlic, clove, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, mustard, garlic, clove, white wine, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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