Name: Pickled Nasturtium Seed
Ingredients: green nasturtium seeds; coarse sea salt; water; boiling vinegar; mace; peppercorns; white sugar

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pickled Nasturtium Seed

Ingredients

Directions

After the flower has dried, take the green seeds.
Soak the seeds in a mixture of salt and water for 2 days.
Then soak in cold fresh water for 1 day.
Pack the seeds into bottles.
Cover the seeds with boiling vinegar seasoned with mace, peppercorns, and a little white sugar.
Cork the bottles and set them aside.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,415 recipes
Mace + sugartop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,096 recipes