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Dessert

Yellow Mangoes

A preserved mango dish made by bleaching, dyeing, stuffing with spices, and packing in jars with vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Yellow Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mangoes

  1. Wash the mangoes in cold water and soak them in strong salt water until they turn yellow.

  2. Remove the insides, cover them with salt and a little water, and place them in the sun to bleach.

  3. After bleaching, soak the mangoes in cold water for 3-4 hours.

  4. Prepare a dye with turmeric and vinegar and soak the mangoes in it for 2-3 weeks.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Sprinkle the peeled garlic with salt and sun-dry for 3-4 days, then wash and dry it again.

  2. Combine half of the garlic with vinegar, turmeric in a bag, ginger, allspice, long pepper, sugar, and horseradish.

  3. Set the mixture in the sun daily for a month.

Stuff and jar

  1. To stuff the mangoes, mix mace, turmeric, celery seed, remaining garlic, horseradish, and mustard seeds with sweet oil.

  2. Pack the mangoes in jars, cover with the vinegar mixture, and seal tightly.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Turmeric + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 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
The main fruit, which takes on the salt, dye and spiced vinegar during preserving.
Vinegar
Acidity that helps preserve the mangoes and gives the pickling liquid its sharp taste.
Turmeric
Gives the mangoes and the mixtures their yellow colour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Garlic
Adds sharp aroma and savoury flavour to the spiced vinegar and stuffing.
Sweet oil
Fat that carries the spices and coats the stuffing mixture.

The step that matters

Soaking the mangoes in strong salt water until they turn yellow. Salt draws moisture out of the fruit and firms its flesh, preparing it to take up the turmeric dye and vinegar later. Skipping or rushing this stage leaves the fruit less ready to absorb the later liquids.

Swap the mango

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangothe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, vinegar, garlic, sugar, horseradish, ginger, allspice. 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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