Name: Cherry Pickle
Ingredients: firm, ripe, short-stem cherries; vinegar; sugar to taste; allspice; mace; cloves; cinnamon

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Cherry Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Pick firm, ripe cherries with stems and place them in a stone jar.
In a kettle, combine vinegar, sugar to taste, allspice, mace, cloves, and cinnamon.
Heat the mixture until scalding hot, then pour it over the cherries.
Let the cherries sit overnight.
Pour the vinegar off the cherries into the kettle, scald it again, and pour it back over the cherries.
Repeat this process for nine mornings.
Your pickle is ready 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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.