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A pickled relish of garlic, shallots, ginger, cayenne, coriander seed, salt, white wine vinegar, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. In a marble mortar, beat the garlic, shallots, ginger, cayenne, coriander seed, and salt until well combined.

  2. Pour boiling white wine vinegar over the mixture. Add the thinly cut lemon peel.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then transfer it to a bottle.

Store and use

  1. Cork the bottle tightly and shake well 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Garlic + coriandertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,474 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Provides pungent flavour that mellows and sweetens as the pickle sits.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and savoury depth to the pickle.
White wine vinegar
Acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp tang.
Coriander seed
Adds warm, citrusy aroma to the pickle.
Cayenne pepper
Supplies heat that builds through the pickle's flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring boiling vinegar over the mixture. Hot vinegar starts to soften and flavour the raw garlic and shallots while helping keep the pickle stable. Pouring it onto the spices in the mortar gives them an immediate sharp, aromatic infusion, so the vinegar should be fully boiling when it goes in.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, garlic, ginger, pepper, coriander, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, garlic, ginger, pepper, coriander, white wine, 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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