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Garlic Pickle

A pickled garlic prepared with vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Garlic Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the garlic

  1. Remove the skins from the garlic cloves and place them in a dish.

  2. Sprinkle plenty of coarse sea salt over the garlic and let it sit for 2-3 days.

  3. Wipe the garlic and lay it in the sun to dry.

Make the pickle

  1. In a preserving pan, combine the vinegar, 1 teaspoon of salt, whole pepper, and bruised mustard seed.

  2. Boil the mixture quickly, remove any scum, and add the garlic for 3 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into an earthen jar and let it cool.

  4. Once cool, tightly cover the jar with a bladder or several layers of paper.

  5. Ensure the vinegar covers the garlic, adding more if it becomes absorbed.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 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

Garlic cloves
Provide the main flavour and pungency that the vinegar carries and mellows over time.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, adding sharp acidity that keeps the garlic stable and tangy.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the garlic through osmosis, firming it and concentrating its flavour before pickling.
Whole pepper
Adds aromatic heat and spice that infuses into the pickling liquid.
Bruised mustard seed
Releases pungent aroma and sharpness into the vinegar, adding a savoury bite.

The step that matters

Keep the garlic submerged in the vinegar. Garlic exposed to air can discolour, spoil or grow mould. Keeping every clove covered by the acidic liquid, and topping it up as the garlic absorbs it, protects the pickle from spoilage.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, vinegar, pepper, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, vinegar, pepper, mustard. 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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