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Pickles

Pickles should not be made with unboiled vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,493 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the wine vinegar in a stone or enamelled vessel.

  2. Use a stone jar placed on a stove or hot hearth for boiling.

  3. Keep pickles in stone or glass jars, avoiding glazed earthenware.

  4. Use a wooden spoon to remove pickles from jars.

  5. Ensure pickles are always covered with vinegar.

  6. Make pickles when vegetables are in season.

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. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Wine + cabbagetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together186 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 cabbage

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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

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