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Sweet Sour Pickles

Sweet Sour Pickles are pickles preserved in a sweet and sour brine of vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sweet Sour Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickles

  1. Freshen pickles in cold water and drain.

  2. Cover pickles with boiling water and let stand for five hours, then drain again.

Make the brine

  1. Boil cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and pickling spices in a bag.

  2. Heat pickles in brine and bottle them hot.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack pickles in jars, pour boiling vinegar over them, then seal immediately.

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

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

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickles
The main vegetable, which the brine soaks into to flavour and soften it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pickle and helps preserve it.
Pickling spices
Add aroma and warm, savoury flavour to the brine.

The step that matters

Pack pickles in jars, pour boiling vinegar over them, then seal immediately.. Packing with boiling vinegar and sealing right away keeps the contents hot, which drives out air. As the jar cools, this helps create a vacuum that holds the lid firmly closed. Delay lets air and cooler temperatures work against a good seal.

“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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