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Pickles, Syrups, and Sugars

A pickled mixture of garlic or shallot, mustard seeds, and nutmeg in boiling vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,053 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Pickles, Syrups, and Sugars

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely beat the garlic or shallot, mustard seeds, and sliced nutmeg.

  2. Pour the boiling hot vinegar over the ingredients in a jar.

Steep and store

  1. Cover the jar and let it sit for 3 to 4 days.

  2. Seal the jar with a bung and tie leather over it.

  3. Let it sit for a week before using.

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. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Garlic + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic or shallot
Provides the main pungent, savoury flavour that the vinegar draws out and carries.
Mustard seeds
Contribute sharp, pungent heat that develops as they steep in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and extracts flavour from the other ingredients through acidity.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling hot vinegar over the ingredients. The vinegar must be boiling hot so it can extract flavour quickly from the crushed ingredients and help reduce surface microbes. Pouring it over and sealing the jar keeps the mixture covered while it steeps.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, mustard, 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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