Name: Plums, Pickled Like Olives
Ingredients: hard green plums; 2 cups vinegar; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; ½ ounce mustard seed

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plums, Pickled Like Olives

Ingredients

hard green plums
2 cups vinegar
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
½ ounce mustard seed

Directions

Prepare the plums

Gather hard green plums before the stones form.

Pickle

Boil enough vinegar to cover the plums, adding salt and mustard seed.
Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the plums.
Let the plums sit overnight.
Drain the liquid.
Boil the liquid again.
Repeat the process.

Bottle and store

Place the plums in bottles.
Cover the bottles with vinegar.
Seal the bottles tightly.
Store the bottles in a cool, dry place.

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.

Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Plum + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together158 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard green plums: Provide the firm fruit that holds its shape through repeated hot vinegar treatments.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that preserves the plums and gives them their sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the brine and adds savoury flavour that balances the vinegar's sharpness.
Mustard seed: Adds a pungent, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.