Name: Pickled Cherries
Ingredients: 2 cups pitted cherries; 2 cups cold vinegar; 2 cups sugar

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pickled Cherries

Ingredients

2 cups pitted cherries
2 cups cold vinegar
2 cups sugar

Directions

Soak the cherries

Pit the cherries and cover them with cold vinegar.
Let them stand for several days.
Drain off the vinegar and place the cherries in a stone jar.

Sweeten and cover

Add an equal amount of sugar to the cherries and stir occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.
Add enough vinegar to cover the cherries.

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries: Provide the fruit flavor and firm texture that the vinegar and sugar season.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that flavors the cherries and helps preserve them.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

“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.