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Dessert

Pickled Plums

Pickled plums are plums preserved in a sugar and vinegar syrup with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and prepare the plums.

  2. In a large pot, combine the sugar and vinegar.

  3. Add the plums and spices to the pot.

Cook and store

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the plums are tender.

  2. Pack the plums into sterilized jars and pour the syrup over them.

  3. Seal the jars and store in a cool, dark place.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickling syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Simmering until the plums are tender. Simmering softens the fruit so the syrup can penetrate it. Stopping too early leaves firm plums that absorb less flavour, while overcooking can break them down and make the texture mushy.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar. 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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