Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Parsley Green

Pickled parsley green preserved in salt and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 669 recipes. Both carry p-mentha-1,3,8-triene, which smells camphor, herbal. The science ↓

To Pickle Parsley Green

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the parsley

  1. Take a large quantity of curled parsley.

  2. Make a strong saltwater solution that can float an egg.

  3. Submerge the parsley in the saltwater and let it sit for a week.

  4. After a week, drain the parsley and prepare a fresh saltwater solution.

  5. Soak the parsley in the new solution for another week.

  6. Rinse the parsley in spring water, changing the water daily for three days.

  7. Blanch the parsley in boiling water until it turns green, then drain it well.

Make the pickle and store

  1. Boil 1 quart of distilled vinegar with 2-3 blades of mace, diced nutmeg, and 1-2 shallots for a few minutes.

  2. Once the vinegar mixture is cool, pour it over the parsley along with 2-3 diced horseradish pieces.

  3. Store the pickled parsley for use.

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. Parsley + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-mentha-1,3,8-triene (camphor, herbal).

  2. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Dill + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Curled parsley
Is the main vegetable that is preserved and turned green-tinged and crisp through the process.
Strong salt
Draws water out of the parsley and seasons it during the long saltwater soaks.
Dill vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the parsley and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Horseradish
Adds a pungent, sharp heat that flavours the pickling liquid and the parsley.

The step that matters

Blanching the parsley until it turns green. Blanching briefly in boiling water sets the chlorophyll so the parsley stays bright green. Leaving it in too long turns it dull and soft, and the parsley should be drained well so excess water does not dilute the vinegar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, dill, vinegar, nutmeg, shallot, horseradish):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, dill, vinegar, nutmeg, shallot, horseradish. 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.

You might also like

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes