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Sour Pickles

Pickles preserved in a spiced vinegar brine with salt, spices, sugar, onion, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Sour Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the pickles

  1. Soak the pickles in a strong brine made from 1 pint of salt dissolved in 6 quarts of boiled and skimmed water.

  2. Pour the boiling brine over the pickles and let them drain and dry.

Spice the vinegar and pickle

  1. In a pot, combine strong vinegar with the spices in a muslin bag and boil.

  2. Add sugar, sliced onion, and sliced lemon to the vinegar mixture.

  3. Pour the hot spiced vinegar over the pickles.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickles
Are the main vegetable that absorbs the brine and spiced vinegar to become sour and flavoured.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the pickles their sour taste and preserves them.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the pickles and seasons them during the brine soak.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling brine over the pickles. The brine must be boiling and well salted so it penetrates and firms the pickles; a weak or cooled brine can leave them soft or spoiled.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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