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Pickles and Preserves

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pickles and Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove stalks and spines from the leaves of the vegetables.

  2. Boil the vegetables in a copper pan until they release all their liquid.

  3. Strain the liquid off and return the puree to the fire.

  4. Cook the puree until it reaches a smooth consistency.

  5. Transfer the puree to wide-mouthed unglazed jars and smooth the top.

  6. Cover with paraffin wax, seal, and store in a dry place.

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. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sorrel + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together419 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + beeftop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

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

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

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, beef):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

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

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