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Strawberry Pickles

A preserved fruit made by layering strawberries with spices and sweetened vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Strawberry Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place strawberries in the bottom of a jar.

  2. Add a layer of cinnamon and cloves, then more strawberries, and repeat layers.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil vinegar and sugar for 5 minutes to make syrup.

  2. Pour syrup over the berries and let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Pour off syrup, boil it again, and pour over berries.

  4. Let stand as before, then boil berries and syrup slowly for 25 minutes.

Jar

  1. Put in jars and cover.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
Form the main body of the preserve and absorb the flavored syrup.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the fruit and gives it a sharp, tangy bite.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and draws moisture out of the berries, helping them hold their shape.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice flavor that infuses into the berries.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm aroma and spice flavor that infuses into the berries.

The step that matters

Boiling the berries and syrup for 25 minutes. Simmering slowly rather than boiling hard helps the berries keep their shape while the syrup thickens. Over-vigorous boiling can break the fruit down into a mush.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, 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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