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To Pickle Barberries and Siberian Crabs

A pickle of barberries and Siberian crabs preserved in brine or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Pickle Barberries and Siberian Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut half the length of the stalks from the crabs.

  2. Remove leaves and discolored barberries.

Brine and store

  1. Place the fruit in stone jars and cover with boiled and cooled brine made from salt and alum.

  2. Check occasionally for scum or mold and remove any scum or mold.

  3. Replace the brine with freshly made brine as needed.

Make and add the vinegar

  1. Add alum to enough vinegar to cover the fruit and boil with white peppercorns.

  2. Strain the peppercorns.

  3. Let the vinegar cool before pouring it over the fruit.

  4. Pour the cooled vinegar over the fruit.

  5. Ensure the crabs are not ripe to prevent bursting in the pickle.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Crab + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Crab + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Barberries
Provide the tart fruit that is preserved and pickled in the brine and vinegar.
Siberian crabs
Provide the fruit that is pickled; they must be unripe so they hold together in the pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the fruit and helps preserve it in the brine.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Alum
Helps keep the fruit firm so it does not soften or burst in the pickle.

The step that matters

Use unripe crabs. Ripe fruit is soft and breaks down or bursts in the acidic liquid. Unripe fruit has firmer flesh that holds its shape through pickling.

“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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