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To Make Mangoes

A pickled mango recipe using mustard seed, horseradish, cloves, crushed ginger, mace or nutmeg, onions, and a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Make Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Cut a piece out of the side of each melon.

  2. Scrape out the pulp.

  3. Use a needle to fasten the piece back to the melon.

Brine

  1. Make a pickle with salt and water that will float an egg.

  2. Pour the pickle over the melons when slightly cool.

  3. Let the melons sit in the pickle for several weeks.

  4. Scald the pickle weekly.

Soak and stuff

  1. Soak the melons in warm water for 2-3 days.

  2. Change the water often.

  3. Wipe the melons dry.

  4. Mix mustard seed, horseradish, whole cloves, crushed ginger, mace or nutmeg, and sliced onions together.

  5. Fill the melons with the mixture.

  6. Sew the melons up.

Pickle the cucumbers

  1. If you have leftover stuffing, use large cucumbers.

  2. Cut and scrape the cucumbers like the melons.

  3. Boil vinegar with a piece of alum.

  4. Skim off the scum.

  5. Pour the hot vinegar over the cucumbers.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 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

Melons
Serve as the hollow vessel that holds the spiced stuffing while pickling.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that carries through the long pickling period.
Horseradish
Contributes pungent heat that mellows as the melons sit in the pickle.
White onions
Add savoury, sharp flavour and moisture to the stuffing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.

The step that matters

Keep the brine at the right strength. The brine must be salty enough to float an egg; if it is too weak, the melons can spoil during the weeks-long pickling, and the pickle must be scalded weekly to keep it clean.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (melon, mustard, horseradish, clove, ginger, onion, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against melon, mustard, horseradish, clove, ginger, onion, 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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