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Pumpkin Sweet Pickles

A pickled pumpkin preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pumpkin Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pumpkin into pieces.

  2. Combine vinegar, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger in a pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Cook the pumpkin

  1. Add the pumpkin to the pot.

  2. Let it simmer for 30 minutes or until boiling.

  3. Remove the pumpkin from the pot with a skimmer.

Pack and store

  1. Place the pumpkin in jars.

  2. Boil the syrup until it reduces enough to cover the pickles.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the pumpkin in the jars.

  4. Store in a cool cellar.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + pumpkintop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Ginger + pumpkintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that makes the pickling liquid tangy and preserves the pumpkin.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the syrup as it reduces, balancing the vinegar's sharpness.
Molasses
Adds dark color and a deep, rich sweetness to the syrup.
Pumpkin
The main vegetable that softens in the syrup and absorbs its flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it reduces enough to cover the pickles. Sugar and vinegar concentrate as the syrup reduces, which helps preserve the pumpkin. If the syrup is too thin, the pieces are not fully covered and can spoil.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, clove, ginger):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, clove, ginger. 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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