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Pickled Beets

Pickled beets preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

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

Prepare the beets

  1. Cleanse and boil the beets for 2 hours.

  2. Once cold, peel and slice the beets.

  3. Place the sliced beets into a jar.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a saucepan, boil ½ ounce each of cloves, peppercorns, mace, and ginger in 1 pint of vinegar.

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

Pickle

  1. Cover the beets with the prepared 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.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets
The main vegetable, which gives the pickle its texture and deep colour.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that preserves the beets and balances their earthy sweetness.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Peppercorns
Adds a mild, pungent heat that flavours the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, nutmeg-like aroma to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds a bright, warm spiciness that lifts the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Let the spiced vinegar cool before adding the rest. Boiling the spices in vinegar extracts their flavour, but pouring very hot liquid over the beets would keep cooking them and soften their texture. Cooling the mixture first keeps the slices firm while the flavours soak in.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, ginger. 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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