Name: Pickles, &C
Ingredients: pods; good vinegar; mace; ginger; long pepper; horse-radish

Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Pickles, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the pods and let them cool.
Boil the vinegar with mace, ginger, long pepper, and horse-radish.
Pour the boiling vinegar over the pods.
When nearly cold, boil the vinegar again and pour it on the pods.
When cold, cover with leather.

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.

Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Ginger + radishtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together172 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + radishtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together382 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, ginger, pepper, horse, radish):

Turmericfits better
Allspicefits better
Clovefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, pepper, horse, radish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.