Name: Pickled Plums
Ingredients: 2 quarts plums; 2 pounds sugar; 1 pint vinegar; spices

Why it works: Plum and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

2 quarts plums
2 pounds sugar
1 pint vinegar
spices

Directions

Prepare

Wash the plums thoroughly.
Prepare a syrup by combining sugar, vinegar, and spices in a pot.
Heat the syrup until it is hot.

Pack and pour

Place the plums in jars.
Pour the hot syrup over the plums in 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.

Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,313 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums: Provide the fruit that is pickled and gives the dish its flavour and texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its tang.