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Mango Pickles

Pickled mangoes or sweet peppers with cabbage, celery seed, cinnamon, vinegar, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mango Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Remove the insides of the mangoes or peppers and soak them in strong salt water for 24 hours.

  2. Drain well.

  3. Finely chop the cabbage, salt it, and let it stand for 1 hour.

  4. Wash the cabbage with clear water and drain well.

Fill and pack

  1. Add celery seed and ground cinnamon to taste.

  2. Fill the mangoes with the cabbage mixture and tie them closely.

  3. Pack the filled mangoes in stone jars.

Pour the vinegar

  1. Heat 1 gallon of cider vinegar with 3 pounds of brown sugar and pour it over the mangoes.

  2. Repeat heating the vinegar for two or three mornings in succession.

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. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Celery + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cabbage + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Cabbage
Provides the crisp, bulky filling that stays firm after pickling.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp flavor.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and a molasses note.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cabbage and melons, firming them and seasoning the pickle.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against melon, cabbage, cinnamon, cider, vinegar, sugar. 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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