Name: Cherry Relish
Ingredients: Seeded cherries; Cider vinegar

Cherry Relish

A relish made by marinating seeded cherries in cider vinegar, then rinsing and reconstituting with equal vinegar, left to steep and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription

From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cherry Relish

Ingredients

Seeded cherries
Cider vinegar

Directions

Macerate the cherries

Cover seeded cherries with cider vinegar and let sit for 24 hours.
Pour off the vinegar.
Measure an equal amount of vinegar to the cherries and pour it over the cherries.

Rest and seal

Leave the mixture in open jars for 4 days, stirring several times.
Transfer to glass jars and seal.

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.

Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Seeded cherries: Provide the fruit that softens and flavours the relish as it steeps.
Cider vinegar: Adds acidity that softens the fruit and gives the relish its tangy flavour.

“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.