Name: Pickled Limes
Ingredients: limes; coarse sea salt; allspice; cloves; white mustard-seed; sliced horseradish; hot vinegar

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 ↓

Pickled Limes

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the limes and fill them with coarse sea salt.
Place the limes in the sun to dry for two to three weeks.
Wash off the salt once the limes are dry.
Layer the limes in a jar with allspice, cloves, white mustard-seed, and sliced horseradish.
Fill the jar with hot vinegar.
Let the mixture sit for about four weeks before using.

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.

Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Lime + allspicetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together147 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together654 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).