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Dessert

Pickled Plums

A preserved plum dish made by pickling ripe blue or green plums in a spiced vinegar and sugar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Prick the plums well with a needle.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, and spices.

  2. Heat the mixture until scalding hot.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the plums.

  4. Let the plums sit for three days.

  5. Pour off the liquid.

  6. Boil the liquid.

  7. Pour the boiled liquid back over the plums.

Repeat and store

  1. Repeat this process every three days for a total of six times before storing the fruit.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Blue plums or green gages
Provide the fruit that is softened and flavoured by the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Sweetness that balances the vinegar and helps preserve the fruit.
Cinnamon
Warm, aromatic spice flavour infused into the plums.
Cloves
Strong aromatic spice flavour infused into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour off and reboil the liquid before pouring it back. Boiling the liquid again sterilises it and concentrates the vinegar and sugar, helping keep the fruit safe and preserved during the repeated soaking. Skipping the reboil leaves the liquid less stable for storage.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, mustard. 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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