Name: Beet Pickle
Ingredients: small beets; cold vinegar; sugar to taste; laurel leaves; caraway seed

Why it works: Laurel and caraway work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 38 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Beet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beets

Boil small beets in a porcelain kettle until tender.
Let the beets cool, then place them in a jar.

Pickle

Cover the beets with cold vinegar and sweeten to taste.
Add laurel leaves and caraway seed to the jar.

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.

Laurel + carawaytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vinegar + laureltop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,820 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sugar + carawaytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Vinegar + carawaytop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together139 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Small beets: Main vegetable that is cooked until tender and gives the pickle its body and color.
Cold vinegar: Provides the acidity that preserves the beets and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Caraway seed: Adds a warm, aromatic flavor to the pickling liquid.