Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
To Pickle Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Leave about an inch of stalks on the cherries and place them in a jar.
Cover the cherries with cold vinegar and let them stand for three weeks.
Pour off two-thirds of the vinegar and replace it with fresh vinegar.
Drain the cherries.
Make the pickle
Boil the vinegar with coriander seed, mace, cayenne or white peppercorns, and bruised cochineals tied in muslin.
Let the pickle cool completely before adding it to the cherries.
Wait one month; pickled cherries will be ready.
Sweet syrup
Boil the reserved vinegar with 1 pound of sugar per pint, optionally infusing with fresh raspberries, cherries, or currants for 3-4 days.
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.
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Vinegar + coriandertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,829 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Coriander + macetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together281 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,415 recipes
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Coriander + sugartop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,749 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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit that is preserved and flavoured by the pickle.
- Cold vinegar
- Acts as the preserving liquid that soaks into the fruit and sharpens its flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the reserved vinegar and balances its sharpness in the syrup.
- Cochineal
- Adds a red colour to the pickle liquid.
The step that matters
Cooling the pickle before adding it to the cherries. Hot pickle would soften the fruit and cook it unevenly, so letting it cool completely keeps the cherries firm and intact.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, coriander, sugar):
- Cardamomfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, coriander, sugar. 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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