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Pickled Plums

A pickled plum preserve made with vinegar, salt, fennel seed, and dill.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place green gage plums in an earthenware dish.

  2. Add vinegar, salt, fennel seed, and dill.

Cook the brine

  1. Heat the mixture until it boils, then skim off any foam.

  2. Add the plums and let it boil again.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool completely.

Store

  1. Transfer to jars and store for at least three months before using.

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. Fennel + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Plum + fenneltop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + dilltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Plum + dilltop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Green gage plums
Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the pickling liquid's flavour.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the plums and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy taste.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw out flavour while contributing to preservation.

The step that matters

Let the pickle cool completely before jarring. Adding hot or warm pickling liquid to fruit and sealing it can soften the plums too much and encourage spoilage. Full cooling keeps the texture firm and the storage safer.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, fennel, dill):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, fennel, dill. 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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