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Pickled Plums

A preserved plum dish made by layering plums with spices and sweetened vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Layer plums and spices alternately in a jar.

  2. Scald vinegar and sugar together.

  3. Pour the mixture over the plums.

  4. Repeat the layering and pouring two more times.

  5. On the fourth time, scald everything together and put it into glass jars.

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. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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

Plums
Provide the fruit body and tart-sweet flavor that the syrup soaks into.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit by drawing out moisture and inhibiting spoilage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Stick cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that infuses into the plums.
Cloves
Add a pungent, warm aroma that penetrates the fruit during repeated soaking.

The step that matters

Scalding the vinegar and sugar together. The sugar must fully dissolve in the hot, acidic liquid so the syrup is evenly concentrated. Hot syrup penetrates the fruit and helps preserve it, while uneven or undissolved sugar leaves weak spots.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, cinnamon, clove, 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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