Name: Mango Pickle in Oil
Ingredients: 50 mangoes; 2 cups mustard seeds; 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper; 1 cup sliced ginger; 1 cup sliced garlic; 1 cup grated horseradish; Vinegar (as needed); Oil (enough to immerse mangoes)

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mango Pickle in Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mangoes

Divide mangoes into four parts, leaving the bottoms whole, and scoop out the kernels.
Stuff each mango with mustard seed, cayenne pepper, sliced ginger, sliced garlic, and grated horseradish.
Bind each mango with thread and place them in a large quantity of oil.

Prepare the mustard

Husk the mustard seeds and steep them in water for 24 hours, changing the water 2-3 times.
Dry the mustard seeds for 2 days, then grind them into a coarse powder.
Mix the ground mustard with ginger, garlic, cayenne pepper, and grated horseradish to form a paste with vinegar.
Stuff the mangoes with the paste and reserve some mustard powder to mix with the oil for immersion.

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.

Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mango + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together719 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,053 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mangoes: Form the body of the pickle, soaking up the spiced filling and oil over time.
Mustard seeds: Provide the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the pickle once ground and made into paste.
Cayenne pepper: Adds heat that penetrates the mango flesh and balances the richness of the oil.
Ginger: Adds aromatic warmth and a fresh, sharp note to the stuffing paste.
Garlic: Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during the long steeping in oil.
Horseradish: Adds a sharp, pungent bite that complements the mustard in the paste.

The step that matters

Husk and soak the mustard seeds. Soaking the seeds in changed water for 24 hours softens the husks and reduces bitterness, so the ground mustard tastes mellow rather than harsh once it is made into paste.

Swap the mango

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

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Avocadofits better
Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, ginger, garlic, horseradish, 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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Mango Pickle in Oil