Name: Gooseberry Relish
Ingredients: 6 quarts gooseberries; 6 quarts sugar; 1 pint vinegar; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 1 tablespoon cloves; 1 tablespoon allspice; a little water

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Gooseberry Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the gooseberries with half of the sugar and a little water for 1.5 hours.
When nearly done, add the remaining sugar.
Once done, stir in the spices and 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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

Gooseberries: Provide the fruit base and natural pectin that help the relish thicken as it cooks.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the cooked fruit.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma to the relish.
Cloves: Adds strong, warm aroma and a pungent spice note.
Allspice: Adds a blended warm aroma that rounds out the other spices.

Swap the clove

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

Clovethe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Gingerfits less well
Cardamomfits less well

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