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Pickled Damsons

Pickled Damsons are fruit preserved in a vinegar and sugar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 Damsons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. Place the damsons in a jar.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the vinegar, sugar, and spices, then scald the mixture.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the damsons in the jar.

  4. Cover the jar tightly to prevent flavor loss.

  5. Repeat this process for six consecutive mornings.

Rest

  1. The pickles will be ready to use in two weeks.

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 + cinnamontop 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit that is pickled, absorbing the spiced vinegar syrup and taking on its flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Covering the jar tightly. Aromatic spices and vinegar volatiles escape easily while the hot liquid cools. A tight lid keeps the flavor in the jar and the fruit steeped in the liquid.

Swap the mace

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

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

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