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Pickled Plums or Cherries

A pickled fruit preserve made with plums or cherries, brown sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, and cloves.

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 ↓

Pickled Plums or Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the plums or cherries and spices in a jar.

  2. In a pot, combine the vinegar and brown sugar and heat until scalding.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the fruit and spices in the jar.

  4. Repeat this process for three consecutive mornings.

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. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Plums or cherries
Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the sweet-sour pickling liquid.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the fruit and gives it a tangy flavor.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor that infuses the fruit.
Whole cloves
Contribute strong aromatic spice flavor that infuses the fruit.

The step that matters

Heating the vinegar and sugar until scalding. The mixture must be hot enough to dissolve the sugar fully and help the spices release their flavor into the liquid. Pouring it over the fruit while it is hot helps the fruit take on the flavors more evenly.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

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