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Mango Pickle

A pickled mango condiment made with cumin, mustard seeds, chili powder, oil, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Mango Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Set mangoes in the sun for 10 days, wiping your knife after each cut to prevent blackening.

  2. Bruise the cumin and mustard seeds together.

Make the pickle

  1. Pour salad oil into an enamel saucepan and add the seeds; bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the chili powder, then add vinegar and sugar.

  3. Remove from heat and add the mangoes; let cool before bottling.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mango + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Mango + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mangoes
Provide the main fruit body and sweet-tart flavor of the pickle.
Mustard seeds
Add a sharp, pungent flavor that develops when bruised and heated in oil.
Cumin seeds
Contribute warm, earthy aroma that blooms when heated in oil.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the mangoes and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and chili with sweetness.
Salad oil
Carries the spice flavors and helps them release into the pickle.

The step that matters

Bring the seeds to a boil in oil. Heating the seeds in oil releases their aromatic compounds; if they are not heated enough the pickle will taste flat, and overheating can scorch them and make the flavor bitter.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Cherryfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, vinegar, sugar. 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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