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Mangoes, Pickled

Pickled mangoes prepared by stuffing with garlic, mustard seed, and spices, then preserved in boiled vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mangoes, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mango

  1. Cut off a slice from the top of the mango and remove all the seeds.

  2. Mix garlic, mustard seed, and mango seeds to create a stuffing.

  3. Stuff the mixture back into the mango, replace the top, and bind it down.

Pickle

  1. In a saucepan, boil vinegar with Jamaica peppers, allspice, ginger, and salt.

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar over the mango.

  3. Boil the same vinegar again and pour it over the mango for three consecutive days.

  4. Finally, tie down the mango with bladder to exclude air.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mango and gives it a sharp, tangy flavour.
Garlic
Adds a pungent, savoury aroma that mellows during pickling.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent bite to the stuffing and pickling liquor.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling vinegar.
Ginger
Adds a warm, fresh aroma and gentle heat to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling vinegar over the mango for three days. Hot vinegar softens the fruit and helps the acid and spices penetrate. Repeating the pour on consecutive days keeps the mango well flavoured, and sealing it to exclude air limits spoilage.

Swap the melon

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Melonthe original

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