Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓
Sweet Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Weigh your fruit.
Combine ½ pound of brown sugar and ½ cup of cider vinegar in a pot for every pound of fruit.
Add the bag of mixed spices.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Skim the mixture well.
Cook the fruit
Add the fruit.
Boil until the fruit is tender.
Remove the fruit from the pot.
Place the fruit in a stone jar.
Syrup and storage
Boil the syrup for an additional 5 minutes.
Pour the syrup over the fruit.
Pour off the syrup.
Boil the syrup again.
Keep the spice bag in the syrup.
Repeat boiling the syrup for three mornings.
Cover the jar tightly.
Store until needed.
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.
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Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,431 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,308 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fruit
- Forms the main body of the pickle and absorbs the sweet, spiced syrup as it cooks.
- Brown sugar
- Provides sweetness and helps thicken the syrup and preserve the fruit.
- Cider vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
The step that matters
Repeated boiling of the syrup. Pouring the syrup off and reboiling it over several days gradually concentrates it and draws it into the fruit. Stopping early leaves the fruit under-flavoured and less well preserved.
“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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