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Sweet Pickles

Peaches pickled in a sweet vinegar and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 280 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Place peaches in hot water for a few minutes.

  2. Rub off the skin with a coarse towel.

  3. Stick a few cloves into each peach.

Cook and jar

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and sugar to make a syrup.

  2. Cook peaches a few at a time in the syrup until tender.

  3. Transfer peaches to jars.

  4. Boil down the syrup and pour it over the peaches in 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.

  1. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peach + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

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

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit that softens in the syrup and carries the sweet, tart flavour.
Sugar
Combines with vinegar to form the syrup, adding sweetness and helping preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the peaches in the syrup.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses the peaches.

The step that matters

Boil down the syrup before pouring it over the peaches. Reducing the syrup concentrates its sugar and vinegar, which helps preserve the fruit and gives it a thicker, more flavourful coating. A syrup that is too thin may dilute the flavour and spoil sooner.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, 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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