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Boston Pickled Cherries

A preserved cherry relish made by pickling sour cherries in vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boston Pickled Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Stone the sour cherries and place them in a bowl.

  2. Cover the cherries with vinegar and let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the cherries from the vinegar.

Macerate with sugar

  1. For every cup of cherries, add one cup of sugar until all cherries are measured.

  2. Mix the cherries and sugar in a bowl and let stand for 2 days, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves.

Jar and rest

  1. Transfer the mixture to jars and seal.

  2. Let it sit for a few weeks before using.

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 + 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

Sour cherries
Provide the fruit that is pickled, supplying the main flavour and texture of the dish.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the cherries and gives them their tart, sharp flavour.
Sugar
Sweetness that balances the acidity and draws moisture out of the cherries as it dissolves.

The step that matters

Letting the sugar dissolve fully over two days. Sugar draws liquid out of the fruit and dissolves gradually; stirring occasionally helps it dissolve evenly, so the cherries are evenly sweetened and the syrup forms properly before jarring.

“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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