Name: Sweet Pickles
Ingredients: 1 gallon water; 1 medium hickory-nut sized lump of alum; 1 pint cider vinegar; 2 pounds brown sugar; 2 tablespoons broken cinnamon bark; 2 tablespoons mace; 2 tablespoons pepper grains

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 Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Soak cucumbers in clear water for one day.
Prepare alum-water by dissolving the alum in the water overnight.
Make a syrup by combining cider vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, mace, and pepper.
Cover the cucumber slices with the syrup and cook until tender.

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.

Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Swap the mace

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

Allspicefits better
Clovefits better
Nutmegfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.