Name: Blackberry Sweet Pickle
Ingredients: 1½ pounds half-ripe blackberries; 1 pound sugar; 1 pint vinegar; Spices to taste

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

1½ pounds half-ripe blackberries
1 pound sugar
1 pint vinegar
Spices to taste

Directions

In a pot, combine 1½ pounds of half-ripe blackberries, 1 pound of sugar, and 1 pint of vinegar.
Add spices to suit your taste.
Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

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.

Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Half-ripe blackberries: Supply the main fruit flavor and the bulk of the pickle.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the fruit.

“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.