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To Pickle Barberries

A method for pickling bruised barberries in a salted vinegar solution with sugar, ginger, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and horseradish work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 676 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Pickle Barberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barberries

  1. Boil the bruised barberries in salt and water, then strain the mixture.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. Combine ½ cup of the strained liquid with 1 quart of vinegar, 1 ounce of loaf sugar, ¼ ounce of pounded ginger, and sliced horseradish in a pot.

  2. Boil and strain this mixture.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour it hot over the selected barberries in jars.

  2. Once cooled, cover the jars tightly with bladder.

  3. Alternatively, keep them in a jar with a strong brine of salt and water.

  4. If scum appears, pour off the brine and add fresh brine.

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 + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together676 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that preserves the barberries and gives the pickle its sharpness.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Makes the brine that softens and seasons the barberries and helps preserve them.
Bruised barberries
The main fruit, whose tartness is carried into the pickling liquor.
Pounded ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Pour the liquor hot over the barberries. The liquor must be boiled and strained before pouring, so the vinegar and sugar are hot and clean. Hot liquid helps the fruit take up flavour and keeps the jars free of unwanted microbes, which is why the pickle is at risk if the liquor is weak or poured cool.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, horseradish. 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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