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Martynia Pickle

Pickled young Martynia in a brine of vinegar, water, sugar, spices, and onions.

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 ↓

Martynia Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the young Martynia and soak them in strong brine until ready to pickle.

  2. Soak them in clear water for 24 hours.

Cook

  1. Place them in an iron pot and cover with vinegar and cold water.

  2. Simmer slowly until they blacken, but do not boil.

Pack and seal

  1. In a 2-gallon jar, add the chopped onions, brown sugar, horseradish, cloves, allspice, ginger, celery seed, and mustard seed. Sprinkle all the ingredients in the jar.

  2. Boil strong vinegar and pour it over the pickle.

  3. 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

Young martynia
Forms the main body of the pickle, which softens and darkens during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Onions
Add savory bulk and aroma that blend into the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent flavor that develops as the pickle sits.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until they blacken, but do not boil. Boiling can break down the martynia too quickly and leave it mushy, while gentle simmering lets it soften and darken evenly before it is packed.

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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