Skip to main content
Main

Crab Apple Pjckle

A pickle made from crab apples, brown sugar, vinegar, raisins, and allspice, stewed until well combined.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,475 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Crab Apple Pjckle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Steam the crab apples until soft.

  2. Combine the apples, brown sugar, vinegar, raisins, and allspice in a pot.

  3. Stew the mixture for a while until well combined.

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. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  3. Apple + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together998 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab apples
Provide the main fruit body and tartness that forms the pickle's base.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the pickle while thickening it as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the pickle.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Stew until well combined. Cooking the fruit, sugar and vinegar together long enough lets the sugar dissolve and the flavours meld, while the vinegar's acidity helps preserve the mixture. Stopping too early leaves it unevenly sweetened and less stable.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, apple, sugar, vinegar, raisin. 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.

You might also like

Crab SoupCrab Soup39 recipesApple SoupApple Soup33 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes