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Dessert

Sweet Plum Pickle

A pickled plum preserve made with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Plum Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, and spices in a pot to make a syrup.

Pack and rest

  1. Pour the syrup over the plums in jars, sealing them well.

  2. Let the plums sit for three days.

Finish

  1. On the fourth day, boil the plums with the syrup until it thickens to a jelly-like consistency.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Plum + allspicetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Make up the bulk of the pickle and supply the fruit flavour and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, when boiled down, helps the syrup thicken to a jelly-like set.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling until jelly-like. The fruit's natural pectin and the high sugar concentration set the syrup as it reduces. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff and caramelised. Watch the thickening closely.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, sugar, vinegar, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, vinegar, allspice, nutmeg. 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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