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Pickled Plums

A method of preserving plums by boiling them in a sugar and vinegar solution with cinnamon and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the vinegar, sugar, and spices together, then skim the mixture.

  2. Pour the scalding mixture over the plums.

Steep and repeat

  1. Let the plums sit for 3 days.

  2. Pour off the syrup, then scald and skim it.

  3. Pour the scalded syrup over the plums again.

  4. Repeat the process every 3 days until the plums have been scalded 3 times.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 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

Plums
Provide the fruit that is preserved and flavored by the syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickling liquid its sharp, preserving character.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the pickling syrup.
Cloves
Contributes pungent, warm aroma to the pickling syrup.

The step that matters

Repeated scalding of the syrup. Each scalding must bring the syrup to a full boil and the plums must be fully covered. Heating the syrup again and again drives off spoilage risk and lets the fruit absorb flavor, so skipping or shortening a round weakens the preserving effect.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

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