Skip to main content
Main

Martinoe Pickle

A pickle of young vegetables simmered in vinegar and spices, then jarred with onions, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Martinoe Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Gather young and tender vegetables and wipe them clean.

  2. Soak the vegetables in strong brine until ready to pickle.

  3. Soak in clear water for 24 hours.

Cook and pickle

  1. Place the vegetables in an iron pot and cover with cold vinegar and water.

  2. Simmer slowly until the vegetables blacken. Do not boil.

  3. Transfer the vegetables to a 2-gallon jar.

  4. Add the chopped onions, brown sugar, horseradish, cloves, allspice, ginger, celery seed, and mustard seed to the jar.

  5. Boil strong vinegar and pour it over the vegetables in the jar.

  6. Cover the jar with a plate while hot.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour to the pickling spices.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and do not boil. Gentle simmering softens the vegetables and lets them darken without becoming mushy or tough. Boiling breaks down their texture and can make the pickle limp and cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, horseradish, clove, allspice, ginger, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, horseradish, clove, allspice, ginger, celery. 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesHorseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes