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Dessert

Mango Pickle

A pickled mango preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup with cinnamon and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mango Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine equal parts vinegar and sugar in a pot to make a syrup.

  2. Place a small bag containing cinnamon and cloves into the syrup.

Cook the mangoes

  1. Peel the under-ripe mangoes.

  2. Slice the peeled mangoes.

  3. Drop the sliced mangoes into the boiling syrup.

  4. Boil until the mangoes are clear.

  5. Remove the mangoes from the syrup.

Pack and finish

  1. Place the mangoes in jars.

  2. Boil the syrup down to its original volume.

  3. Pour the syrup into the jars.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + mangotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Clove + mangotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Under-ripe mangoes
Provide the firm fruit that becomes the pickle, holding its shape while cooking in the syrup.
Sugar
Balances the sharp vinegar and adds sweetness, while helping preserve the pickled fruit.
Vinegar
Supplies the acidity that gives the pickle its sour bite and helps preserve it.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the syrup, flavouring the mangoes as they cook.
Ground cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma to the syrup, flavouring the mangoes as they cook.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup down to its original volume. Reducing the syrup concentrates the sugar and vinegar, which helps preserve the mangoes. Boiling it down to the original volume restores the intended balance of sweetness and acidity, so the jarred pickle keeps well and tastes right.

Swap the mango

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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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