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Green Mangoes

A preserved mango recipe using mustard seeds, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Green Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mangoes

  1. Wash the mangoes and soak them in strong salt water for 3–4 weeks.

  2. Soak the mangoes in cold water for 5–6 hours before greening them.

  3. Green the mangoes with alum and grape leaves.

  4. Place the mangoes in a tub of cold water until cold, then remove the insides and put them in vinegar for 2 weeks.

Stuff and pack

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard seeds, mace, celery seed, and horseradish until half pounded.

  2. Add the sweet oil to the mixture and stuff the mangoes.

  3. Tie the mangoes with yarn and place them in jars with the peeled onions.

Make the pickle and sun-cure

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, horseradish, long pepper, allspice, and celery seed with vinegar.

  2. Stir well, cover the jars tightly, and place them in the hot sun for 3–4 weeks.

  3. Cover the jars with bladders and keep them sealed.

  4. Check the jars every month or two, adding more vinegar if necessary to keep the mangoes covered.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Celery + horseradishtop 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

Mangoes
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the stuffing and vinegar flavours as they cure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and horseradish.
Cider vinegar
Acid that preserves the mangoes and gives the pickle its sharp tang.
Mustard seed
Provides pungent heat and texture in the stuffing.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat that mellows during curing.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and moistness to the stuffing, carrying its spice flavours.

The step that matters

Keeping the mangoes covered in vinegar. Any part of the mangoes left above the liquid can spoil or mould during the long sun-curing. Vinegar, being acidic, preserves the fruit only where it fully covers it, so topping up is essential.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, mustard, celery, horseradish, onion, sugar, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, mustard, celery, horseradish, onion, sugar, pepper. 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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