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To Pickle Nasturtium-Berries

Pickled nasturtium berries preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Pickle Nasturtium-Berries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the berries

  1. Gather nasturtium berries soon after the blossoms are gone.

  2. Soak them in cold salt water, changing the water once a day for three days.

Pickle and jar

  1. Make a pickle with white wine vinegar, mace, diced nutmeg, peppercorns, salt, shallots, and horseradish.

  2. Drain the berries and place them in a jar.

  3. Pour the pickle over the berries and seal the jar.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Nutmeg + horseradishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together389 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Nasturtium berries
Are the main ingredient, whose firm texture holds up through soaking and pickling.
White-wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the berries and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cold salt water
Draws out moisture and bitterness from the berries during the soaking period.
Shallots
Add a mild savoury onion flavour that mellows into the pickling liquid.
Horseradish
Adds a pungent, sharp heat that carries through the pickle.

The step that matters

Soaking in salt water. The berries must be soaked in cold salt water and the water changed daily for three days. Skipping changes leaves the berries saltier or more bitter, and the pickle then cannot balance them well.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, 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.

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