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Pickles in Grape Leaves

Pickles preserved in layers of grape leaves, spices, mustard seeds, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pickles in Grape Leaves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickles

  1. Sprinkle 1 cup of coarse sea salt over 1 gallon of pickles and cover with boiling water.

  2. Let the pickles stand overnight, then drain the water.

  3. Heat the pickles and pour hot water over them again. Repeat this for three mornings.

  4. Drain well and line a jar with washed grape leaves.

Pack the jar

  1. Add a layer of pickles, scatter spices and whole mustard seeds, and add small branches of mustard in the pod.

  2. Continue layering with grape leaves, pickles, and spices until the jar is almost full.

Cover and keep

  1. Cover the pickles with cider vinegar.

  2. Place a small weight on top to keep the pickles submerged in vinegar.

  3. Tie a paper or cloth over the top to keep out dust.

  4. If the vinegar turns white, drain it off and cover with fresh 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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Grape + cidertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mustard + cidertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Grape + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickles
They are the main vegetable, and the salt and hot water treatment softens and prepares them for packing.
Coarse sea salt
Salt draws water out of the pickles and seasons them before they are packed in vinegar.
Grape leaves
They line and layer the jar, adding a tannin-rich leaf flavour and helping keep the pickles crisp.
Cider vinegar
Its acidity preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Whole mustard seeds
They add a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows as the pickles stand.

The step that matters

Keeping the pickles fully submerged in vinegar. Any pickles left above the liquid can spoil or grow mould, because air exposure allows microbes to grow. A weight holds everything under the vinegar, and the acidity then protects the pickles during storage.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, cider, 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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