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Sweet Apples Pickled

A sweet pickled apple preserve made with apples, sugar, vinegar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sweet Apples Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the quartered and cored apples, sugar, and vinegar in a large pot, and add cloves to taste.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the apples are transparent.

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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,884 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Provide the fruit body, which softens and turns translucent as heat breaks down its cell walls.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the apples in a thick syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickled flavour and helps preserve the apples.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sweet-sour syrup.

The step that matters

Cook until the apples are transparent. Heat softens the apples' cell walls and pectin so they turn translucent and absorb the syrup. Cooking too long lets the pieces break down into mush, while stopping too early leaves them firm and opaque.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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