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Dessert

Sweet Pickled Cherries

A preserved cherry dish sweetened and flavored with vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Carefully inspect the cherries and remove any wormy ones; do not stem or stone them.

  2. Cover the cherries with water, drain, and measure the water to determine the amount of vinegar needed.

  3. In a preserving kettle, combine the vinegar and sugar; heat until the sugar dissolves, then set aside to cool.

Fill and seal the jars

  1. Place the cherries in glass jars and fill them to overflowing with the cooled vinegar, sealing tightly.

  2. For additional flavor, heat vinegar and sugar with spices for 5 minutes, then let cool completely.

  3. Strain the spiced vinegar and fill jars three-quarters full with cherries, topping off with the vinegar.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Coffee + clovetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + coffeetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together271 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

Cherries
Provide the fruit that is preserved and gives the pickle its main flavor and texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that flavors the fruit and helps preserve it in the jar.

The step that matters

Topping off the jars with vinegar. The cherries must stay fully submerged in vinegar. Fruit exposed to air can spoil, so the jars should be filled to the top and sealed tightly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, coffee):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Peppermintfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, coffee. 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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