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Plum Pickles

A preserved plum recipe using plums, sugar, vinegar, allspice, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the allspice and cloves in a cloth.

Cook the plums

  1. In a large pot, combine the plums, sugar, vinegar, and the spice bag.

  2. Boil until the plums are soft.

  3. Remove the plums and continue boiling the syrup until it thickens.

  4. Pour the thickened syrup over the plums.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Plum + allspicetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit body and flavor that the syrup surrounds and preserves.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, at this concentration, helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the fruit preserved.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until it thickens. Syrup that is not boiled down enough stays thin and watery, so it will not coat the plums well or hold the preserve's concentration. Boiling removes water and concentrates the sugar and vinegar, which helps the syrup thicken and preserve the fruit.

Swap the plum

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, allspice, 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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