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Strawberry Pickle

A pickled strawberry preserve made with strawberries, brown sugar, cider vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Strawberry Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer strawberries and spices in a deep dish.

  2. Boil sugar and vinegar for 3 minutes, then pour over strawberries.

  3. Let sit overnight.

Cure over three days

  1. On the second day, pour off the liquid, boil it again for 3 minutes, and return it to the strawberries.

  2. Let sit until the third day.

  3. On the third day, boil everything together over low heat for 30 minutes.

  4. Transfer to 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Strawberries
Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the syrup as it sits.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the pickle and draws moisture out of the fruit to form a syrup.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor as they steep in the syrup.
Cinnamon stick
Contributes sweet, woody aroma as it infuses into the syrup.

The step that matters

Re-boiling the syrup on the second and third days. Boiling the syrup concentrates it and sterilizes the liquid, while letting it rest between boils lets sugar and vinegar penetrate the fruit. Skipping or shortening a boil can leave the pickle less thick and less stable.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar, cinnamon. 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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