Name: To Pickle Green Plums
Ingredients: green plums; ½ cup vinegar; 2 teaspoons mustard seed; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Pickle Green Plums

Ingredients

green plums
½ cup vinegar
2 teaspoons mustard seed
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Directions

Brine the plums

Boil vinegar, mustard seed, and salt together.
Pour the hot mixture over green plums that are not yet ripe.
Let the plums stand overnight.

Drain, reheat and cover

Drain the vinegar, heat it again, and pour it over the plums.
Once cold, cover the plums tightly.

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.

Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Plum + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together158 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green plums: The fruit being pickled; unripe plums stay firm and tart in the brine.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
Mustard seed: Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavour as it infuses into the hot vinegar.