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Pickles, &C

A vinegar-based pickle with mace, cloves, ginger, pepper, mustard seed, garlic, horse-radish, and green cucumbers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Pickles, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Prepare the vegetables and set them on very low heat for 4–5 hours until they turn a good green.

  2. Remove the vegetables and drain them on a sieve, then wipe them dry.

  3. Once cool, fill the vegetables with horse-radish, mustard seed, garlic, peppercorns, and small pieces of green cucumbers. Sew the cut piece back on with a needle and thread.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, mace, cloves, ginger, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, mustard seed in a bag, garlic, and horse-radish. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes, then pour it over the pickles.

Store

  1. Seal the jar and keep it for later use, refilling with vinegar as needed.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 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

Green cucumbers
Form the main body of the pickle and hold the filling.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the pickles and gives their sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that develops as it steeps in the liquid.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savoury depth to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that carries into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Low, slow heating of the vegetables. Holding the vegetables on very low heat for 4–5 hours keeps them green; higher heat or longer cooking turns green vegetables olive-brown as chlorophyll breaks down.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, ginger, pepper, mustard, garlic, horse. 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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