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Crab Apple Sweet Pickle

A sweet pickle made by boiling crab apples in a vinegar and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Crab Apple Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 1 quart of vinegar and 3 pints of sugar in a pot to make a syrup.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Skim off any foam.

Cook the fruit

  1. Add the crab apples to the boiling syrup.

  2. Let the mixture come to a boil again.

Jar and seal

  1. Transfer the fruit and syrup to jars.

  2. Cover the fruit completely.

  3. Seal the 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, dissolved into a syrup, helps preserve the fruit.
Crab apples
Supply the tart fruit that is pickled and absorbs the flavour of the syrup.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, crab, apple, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, crab, apple, cinnamon, allspice. 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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