Name: To Pickle Gherkins or French Beans
Ingredients: French beans or gherkins (young and not half grown); Salt; Water; Vinegar; Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); Mace; Whole pepper; Allspice; Bruised ginger

Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Gherkins or French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Make a brine with salt and water strong enough to float an egg.
Submerge the beans or gherkins in the brine for nearly a week.
Remove them from the brine and place in a pan with equal parts vinegar and water to cover.
Heat the pan until almost boiling, then maintain this heat for a couple of hours.
Let them cool in the liquid.
Once cool, strain the vinegar and water from the beans or gherkins.
Transfer them to a jar and cover with cold vinegar flavored with mace, whole pepper, allspice, and bruised ginger.
Seal the jars tightly and cover with a bladder wetted with the pickle.
Store in a dry, cool place.

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.

Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, vinegar, pepper, allspice, ginger):

Clovefits better
Turmericfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, vinegar, pepper, allspice, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.