Skip to main content
Dessert

Mixed Fruit Pickles

A preserved mixture of cucumber pickles and canned fruit in a sweet and spicy syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peach and fig share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mixed Fruit Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Soak the large and small pickles in clear water for 2 days, changing the water several times.

  2. Peel the large cucumbers.

  3. Cut the peeled cucumbers into long strips, thick rounds, and other fancy shapes.

  4. Place the cut cucumbers in a jar with the small cucumbers.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Drain the juice from the pineapple and cherries.

  2. Retain the peach juice and put it in another jar.

  3. Combine the washed figs and raisins in another jar.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. Make a syrup by boiling the brown sugar and cider vinegar with ground mustard, mace, cloves, cinnamon, and mustard seed until thick.

  2. Divide the syrup into three parts.

  3. Pour the parts over the jars of cucumbers, canned fruit, and figs and raisins.

  4. Seal the jars tightly.

  5. Let them sit for a week or ten days.

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. Peach + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Peach + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pineapple + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Large and small cucumber pickles
Form the bulk of the preserve, giving firm, crisp pieces that hold their shape in the syrup.
Light brown sugar
Provides sweetness and, as the syrup thickens, body and a glossy preserving coating.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickles.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the mixed fruit.
Figs
Add soft texture and mellow sweetness to the mixed fruit.
Ground mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until thick. Boiling concentrates the sugar and vinegar so the syrup thickens and coats the fruit. If it is under-boiled, it stays thin and may not preserve well; over-boiling can scorch the sugar.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, peach, pineapple, fig, sugar, cider, vinegar):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, peach, pineapple, fig, sugar, cider, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipes