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Sweet Pickled Pieplant

A sweet pickled pieplant stew made with cinnamon, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Pickled Pieplant

makes about four quarts

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine pieplant, cinnamon, sugar, cloves, nutmeg, and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Stew the mixture slowly until it thickens.

  3. Store in jars; this recipe makes about four quarts.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Pieplant
Provides the tart fruit body that the mixture is built around.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the mixture as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickled flavour and helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Stewing slowly until thickened. Cooking gently lets the pieplant break down and release its pectin and water evenly, so the mixture thickens without scorching on the bottom of the pot. Too much heat can burn the sugar and make the texture uneven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, 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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