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Pickled Mangoes

A preserved mango dish flavored with salt, vinegar, spices, and sugar, then stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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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

Soak the fruit

  1. Soak the mangoes in a strong saltwater brine for two weeks, changing the water two or three times.

  2. Soak the mangoes in pure water for two days.

  3. Remove the seeds.

Pickle the mangoes

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

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

  3. Boil for 10-15 minutes.

  4. Remove the leaves.

  5. Let the pickles sit in the vinegar for a week.

Stuff and store

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

  2. Stuff each mango with 2 teaspoons of brown sugar, chopped cabbage, small onions, cucumbers, and green tomatoes.

  3. Mix thoroughly.

  4. Tie the stuffed mangoes.

  5. Place them in a stone jar.

  6. Cover with cider vinegar.

  7. Store in a bright, dry place until canned.

  8. After a month, add 3 pounds of brown sugar.

  9. Adjust 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
Form the pickle's body; brining and soaking firm and season the fruit before stuffing.
Coarse sea salt
Brine draws water out of the fruit and seasons it, firming the flesh for pickling.
Alum
Helps keep the fruit firm and crisp during pickling.
Vinegar
Acidifies the pickling liquid, preserving the fruit and giving it sharpness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and spices.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavor that deepens the pickle's heat.

The step that matters

Soaking the mangoes in brine. Brining too briefly or with weak brine leaves the fruit soft and under-seasoned, while the long soak draws out water and firms the flesh so it holds up to pickling.

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.

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