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Pickled Beets

Pickled beets are boiled beets and onions preserved in a vinegar and clove brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickled Beets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the cloves in the cider vinegar over low heat for 30 minutes without boiling, then let it cool.

  2. Slice the boiled and skinned beets and let them cool.

  3. Thinly slice the small white onions.

Pack and rest

  1. In a glass or stone jar, layer beets, onion slices, a spoonful of the vinegar and cloves, and a pinch of salt. Repeat until the jar is almost full.

  2. Fill the jar with cold cider vinegar.

  3. Let the pickled beets sit for 24 hours 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.

  1. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Clove + cidertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets
Provide the main body, colour and earthy sweetness of the pickle.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves and sharpens the beets and onions.
Small white onions
Add sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during pickling.
Cloves
Infuse warm, aromatic spice into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Let the vinegar cool before packing. Heating the cloves in vinegar extracts their aroma without boiling, which would drive off volatile flavour. Packing while still hot could soften the beets and cook them unevenly, so cooling keeps texture firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, cider, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, cider, 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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