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Dessert

Blackberry Pickles

Pickled blackberries with sugar, vinegar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine blackberries, sugar, vinegar, and cloves in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Scald the mixture, but do not boil.

  3. Let it stand for 24 hours.

  4. Pour out the vinegar from the berries and scald again.

  5. Pour the vinegar back and let it stand for another 24 hours.

  6. Scald all together one last time; the pickles are done.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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

Blackberries
Provide the fruit that forms the body and flavor of the pickles.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the pickles.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Scald without boiling. Holding the mixture just below a boil keeps the blackberries intact and prevents them from breaking down into mush while the flavors infuse.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar. 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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