Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Mangoes

A preserved mango dish flavored with spices, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mangoes

  1. Soak the mangoes in a strong saltwater brine for two weeks.

  2. Change the water two or three times and soak the mangoes in pure water for two days.

  3. Remove the seeds from the mangoes.

  4. Layer grape leaves and mangoes in a kettle, covering with leaves.

  5. Add the alum and pour vinegar over the mangoes.

  6. Boil the mixture for 10-15 minutes.

  7. Remove the leaves and let the pickles sit in the vinegar for a week.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the ginger, black pepper, mace, allspice, turmeric, garlic, horseradish, mustard seeds, and olive oil.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of brown sugar to each mango.

  3. Prepare the cabbage, onions, cucumbers, and green tomatoes by soaking them in brine for a day and night, then drain.

  4. Mix the chopped imperfect mangoes with the spices and the drained vegetables.

  5. Stuff the mangoes with the mixture and tie them.

Jar and sweeten

  1. Place the stuffed mangoes in a stone jar and cover with cider vinegar.

  2. Store the jar in a bright, dry place until canned.

  3. After a month, add 3 pounds of brown sugar, adjusting to taste.

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. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 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
Main body of the pickle; the brine and vinegar soak firm and preserve the fruit.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the fruit and vegetables, firming them and helping preserve them.
Vinegar
Acid that preserves the pickles and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savory flavor to the filling.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and a bit of texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 10-15 minutes. Boiling the fruit in vinegar with alum helps firm its texture; too long can soften it and turn it mushy, so timing matters.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, turmeric, garlic):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, vinegar, ginger, pepper, allspice, turmeric, garlic. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes