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Martinoe Pickle

A pickled vegetable made with martinoe, onions, sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Martinoe Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather young and tender martinoe.

  2. Wipe them clean.

  3. Soak in strong brine until ready to pickle.

  4. Soak in clear water for 24 hours.

Cook and pickle

  1. Place the martinoe in an iron pot.

  2. Cover with cold vinegar and water.

  3. Simmer slowly until they blacken; do not boil.

  4. Transfer to a 2-gallon jar.

  5. Add chopped onions, brown sugar, horseradish, cloves, allspice, ginger, celery seed, and mustard seed to the jar.

  6. Boil strong vinegar.

  7. Pour the boiled vinegar over the pickles.

  8. Cover the jar with a plate while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Martinoe
Forms the pickled vegetable itself, providing the main texture and body of the dish.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Onions
Add savory flavour and moisture to the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until they blacken; do not boil. Boiling would soften the martinoe too much and break down their texture, while gentle simmering lets them cook through and darken evenly without falling apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, horseradish, clove, allspice, ginger, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, horseradish, clove, allspice, ginger, celery. 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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