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Pickled Mangoes

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

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

Prepare the mangoes

  1. Soak the mangoes in salt water for two weeks.

  2. Change the water two or three times over two days.

  3. Remove the seeds and layer mangoes with grape leaves in a kettle.

  4. Add alum and pour vinegar over the mangoes, then boil for 10-15 minutes.

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

Make the filling

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

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of brown sugar to each mango.

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

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

Stuff and store

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

  2. Place in a stone jar and cover with cider vinegar.

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

  4. 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
Provide the main body of the pickle, which softens and absorbs the spiced vinegar and sugar.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp pungency that mellows during the long pickling period.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and brine with sweetness.
Cider vinegar
Acidity preserves the pickle and gives it its tang.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and flavour that deepens over time in the jar.

The step that matters

Soaking the mangoes in salt water. Salt draws water out of the fruit and firms it, so the mangoes stay crisp rather than mushy. The water must be changed as the salt is drawn into it, so the brine stays strong enough to do this over the full two weeks.

Swap the mace

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

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

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