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Pickled Plums

A pickled plum recipe using 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 ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the sugar and vinegar together in a large pot.

  2. Add the plums to the pot.

  3. Boil for three hours, removing the seeds while boiling.

  4. Stir in the ground allspice and ground cloves.

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 that softens and absorbs the sweet, sour syrup as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the fruit.
Ground allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the fruit.
Ground cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma and spice flavor to the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil for three hours. The long boil reduces the sugar and vinegar into a thick syrup that coats and preserves the plums. Too short a boil leaves the syrup thin, while sugar left too long over heat can scorch and turn bitter.

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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