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Garlic — Continued

A preserved garlic in vinegar with ginger, long pepper, turmeric, and crushed mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Garlic — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ginger

  1. Soak ginger in strong brine for 5 days.

  2. Slice ginger and dry the sliced ginger in the sun.

Prepare the garlic

  1. Remove the peel from garlic.

  2. Cover garlic with coarse sea salt and let sit for 3 days.

  3. Wipe garlic and dry it in the sun.

Combine and age

  1. Place ginger in a jar and pour white-wine vinegar over it.

  2. Add garlic to the jar with ginger.

  3. Add long pepper, turmeric, and crushed mustard seed to the jar.

  4. Cover the jar, shake it, and let it sit for a year 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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + turmerictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Is the main pickled ingredient, giving the sharp, mellow pungency that develops during long aging.
White-wine vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the garlic and ginger and sharpens their flavour.
Ginger
Adds a warm, fresh, peppery aroma that carries into the pickling liquid.
Turmeric
Adds earthy flavour and a deep yellow colour to the pickle.
Long pepper
Contributes a warm, hot, slightly sweet spiciness.
Crushed mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent heat that mellows as the pickle ages.

The step that matters

Drying the garlic before it goes in the jar. Surface moisture left on the garlic dilutes the vinegar and can allow spoilage during the long rest. Thorough drying helps the vinegar keep the garlic preserved and firm.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, vinegar, garlic, pepper, turmeric, mustard. 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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