Name: Ripe Peach Pickles
Ingredients: Peaches; 1 quart vinegar; 1 cup sugar; 1 teaspoon allspice; 12 cloves; 3 large sticks cinnamon

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 ↓

Ripe Peach Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Pare the peaches.
Drop the peaches in vinegar that has been boiled with allspice, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.
Tie the spices in a cloth before boiling the vinegar.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 is flavored and pickled in the spiced vinegar.
Vinegar: Supplies sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve the fruit.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet spice aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cloves: Adds strong, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
Allspice: Adds a blended warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

Swap the peach

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

Vanillafits better
Orangefits better
Quincefits better
Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, 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.