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Pickled Peaches

Pickled peaches preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Pour boiling water over the peaches, then remove and wipe them dry to remove the down.

  2. Fill the peaches with cassia buds.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine 1 gallon of weak vinegar and 3 pounds of sugar; scald it.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and skim until clear, removing from heat each time you skim.

  3. In jars, layer the peaches and pour over a hot syrup made from 1 quart of vinegar, 3 pounds of sugar, 1 ounce of cinnamon, and a little allspice.

  4. Add 4 cloves to the peaches in the jars.

Pickle and preserve

  1. Let them stand for a day, then pour off the pickle, scald it, and pour it back on.

  2. Repeat this process the next day for preservation.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cassia + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  5. Cassia + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
The fruit that is pickled, becoming tender and absorbing the sweet-sour syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the fruit and gives the pickle its tang.
Egg whites
Bind impurities in the hot syrup so they can be skimmed off, leaving it clear.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Skimming the syrup with egg whites. Egg whites coagulate as they heat and trap cloudy impurities; the syrup must be skimmed while it is kept off the boil so it clears rather than cooking the whites into the pickle.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Peachthe original

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