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Dessert

Pickled Plums

Pickled plums preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced syrup

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and grated nutmeg in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

Pickle and bottle

  1. Pour the boiling mixture over the plums, ensuring they are fully covered.

  2. Let the plums stand for 3 days.

  3. Transfer the plums and liquid to a preserving pan and gently simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Carefully turn the plums out to cool.

  5. Once cool, bottle and cork 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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit and their juices, which soften and absorb the spiced vinegar syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
White sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the syrup.
Whole cloves
Adds pungent, warm aroma to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Gently simmering the plums. Simmering only gently keeps the plum skins and flesh intact. A hard boil would split the fruit and make it mushy, while the acid and sugar in the syrup do the preserving.

Swap the mace

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

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

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