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Pickled Beets

Beets preserved in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Beets

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beets

  1. Clean the beets and boil them for three hours.

  2. Once cooled, peel and slice the beets into a jar.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a saucepan, boil the cloves, black pepper, mace, and ginger in 1 cup of vinegar.

  2. Allow the vinegar mixture to cool, then add another cup of vinegar.

Pickle and seal

  1. Pour the vinegar mixture over the beets and seal the jar.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets
Provide the main body, texture and earthy sweetness of the pickle.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the beets and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Black pepper
Adds mild heat and a sharp, aromatic spice note to the liquid.
Mace
Contributes a warm, nutmeg-like aroma to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds a fresh, pungent aroma that brightens the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Let the spiced vinegar cool before adding the second cup. The first cup is boiled with the spices to extract their flavour. Adding the second cup cool keeps its sharp acidity and fresh aroma intact, and pouring hot liquid over the beets could soften them and cook the surface unevenly.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, ginger, 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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