Name: Pickled Nasturtium Seeds
Ingredients: green nasturtium seeds; coarse sea salt; mace; peppercorns; white sugar; white vinegar

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pickled Nasturtium Seeds

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the green nasturtium seeds in salt water for 36 hours.
Rinse the seeds in cold water for a full day.
Pack the seeds into small bottles.
Add a few bits of mace, peppercorns, and a little white sugar.
Cover the seeds with scalding white vinegar.
Cork the bottles and let them sit for a month before using.

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.

Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,415 recipes
Mace + sugartop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,096 recipes