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Dessert

Pickled Plums

Pickled plums preserved in a sweet vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickling syrup

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, and spices in a pot and bring to a boil, then skim off any foam.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the plums.

Pickle the plums

  1. Let the plums sit for three days.

  2. Pour off the syrup, scald it again, and skim it.

  3. Pour the syrup back over the plums.

  4. Repeat this process every three days for a total of three times.

  5. After the third scalding, the plums are ready to use.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Plum + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Plum + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the pickling syrup and helps preserve the plums by drawing out moisture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the plums.
Plums
The fruit being pickled; it softens and absorbs the spiced syrup over repeated soakings.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma and warmth to the syrup.

The step that matters

Repeating the scalding on schedule. Each reheating of the syrup kills microorganisms and the repeated soaking lets the syrup penetrate the fruit, so skipping a round or scalding too little can leave the plums less well preserved.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, clove, cinnamon. 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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