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Damsons, Pickled

A pickled preserve made from damsons, sugar, spices, and malt vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Damsons, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and wipe the damsons carefully, discarding any that are broken or unsound.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the damsons, sugar, cloves, mace, ginger, peppercorns, allspice, and malt vinegar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Reduce the heat and let it simmer until the damsons are tender.

Jar and store

  1. Transfer the mixture to sterilized jars.

  2. Seal the jars when cool.

  3. Let the pickles sit for at least a month 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons
Provide the fruit, whose flesh softens during simmering to take up the spiced vinegar syrup.
Sugar
Balances the sharp malt vinegar and helps preserve the fruit in a sweet-sour syrup.
Malt vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the pickle its sharp flavour and helps keep it stable in jars.

The step that matters

Simmer until the damsons are tender. Simmering must be gentle and long enough to soften the fruit so it absorbs the syrup, but not so hard that the damsons break apart and cloud the liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, ginger, allspice, malt, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, ginger, allspice, malt, 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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