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Dessert

Sweet Pickle Plums

A preserved plum dish made by boiling plums with sugar, vinegar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 446 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Pickle Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the plums.

  2. Combine the plums, brown sugar, and vinegar in a kettle.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture until it thickens, stirring constantly.

  2. Skim off the seeds.

  3. Add a few cloves.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Plums
Supply the fruit flesh and natural pectin that help the mixture set as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it concentrates, thickens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the plums.
Cloves
Add warm, spiced aroma to the sweet-sour syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until thickened, stirring constantly. The sugar-rich mixture thickens as water evaporates and sugar concentrates. Without constant stirring, it can scorch on the bottom of the kettle, giving a burnt taste and dark colour.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, vinegar. 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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