Name: Pickled Cherries
Ingredients: 1 peck of cherries; 1 quart of vinegar; 4 pounds of sugar

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pickled Cherries

Ingredients

1 peck of cherries
1 quart of vinegar
4 pounds of sugar

Directions

Heat the vinegar and sugar together until dissolved.
Strain the mixture.
Cook the cherries in the strained mixture until tender.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries: Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the sweet-sour pickling liquid.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar: Balances the acidity with sweetness and helps the fruit hold its shape while cooking.

“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.