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Pickled Mangoes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Select large cucumbers and cut them before they ripen or turn yellow.

  2. Make an incision, remove seeds, and save the piece you cut out.

  3. Soak cucumbers and cut pieces in a strong saltwater brine for 10 days until yellow.

  4. Layer cucumbers in a pan with fresh vine leaves between them.

  5. Dissolve powdered alum in the brine and pour it over the cucumbers.

  6. Heat the pan over moderate heat for at least 4 hours without boiling until cucumbers turn a fine green color.

  7. Drain cucumbers and let them cool.

  8. Stuff each cucumber with horse-radish, mustard seed, garlic, and peppercorns, then stitch the piece back in place.

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

  10. Pour the cooled pickle over the mangoes 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. Cucumber + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, horse, radish, mustard, clove, garlic, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, horse, radish, mustard, clove, garlic, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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