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Pickled Peaches

Pickled peaches are peaches preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 280 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Brush and peel the peaches.

  2. Stick a few cloves into each peach.

Make the pickle

  1. Make a syrup with ½ pound of sugar for every pound of peaches.

  2. Boil the peaches until tender, then place them in a jar.

  3. Boil the syrup until thin, then add ½ pint of vinegar for each quart of syrup.

  4. Pour the hot syrup over the peaches in the jar.

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. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peach + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

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

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 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

Peaches
Provide the fruit that is cooked until tender and steeped in the spiced syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavor that infuses the peaches.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thin. Boiling the sugar syrup until it thins lets it dissolve fully and flow into the fruit. Adding the vinegar after this keeps the syrup balanced in acidity and flavor.

Swap the clove

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

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

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