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Dessert

Peach Mangoes

A preserved peach dish with horseradish, mustard seed, ginger, cloves, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Peach Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Remove the stone from the peaches using a sharp knife.

  2. Place the peaches in a jar and cover with salted water; let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Remove the peaches and soak them in cold water for 10 minutes.

  4. Dry the peaches thoroughly and fill each cavity with a mixture of horseradish and mustard seed.

Make the filling

  1. To prepare the mixture, pour boiling water over equal parts of mustard seed and add ¼ teaspoon salt for every 2 tablespoons of seed; let stand for 15 minutes.

  2. Combine the soaked mustard seed with chopped horseradish, a little ginger root, and 2 cloves.

Pack and pickle

  1. Sew up the peaches and pack them tightly in a stone jar.

  2. Boil 1 pint of sugar with 3 pints of vinegar and pour over the packed peaches.

  3. These can be used after one week.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Radish + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Horse + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Large freestone peaches
Form the main body of the preserve, absorbing the sweet-sour pickling liquid as they sit.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the peaches and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the vinegar with sweetness in the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent heat and texture to the filling inside each peach.
Horse-radish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat to the filling.

The step that matters

Soaking the peaches in salted water for 24 hours. Salt draws water out of the fruit and firms its flesh, so the peaches hold their shape through pickling. Skipping or shortening this soak can leave them soft.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, radish, mustard, ginger, clove, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, mustard, ginger, clove, sugar, 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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