Why it works: Crab and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓
To Pickle Barberries and Siberian Crabs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Harvest barberries and Siberian crabs before they are very ripe.
Cut half the length of their stalks from the crabs and remove any discolored barberries.
Put the cleaned fruits into stone jars and cover them with boiled brine that has cooled completely.
Make the brine
To make the brine, boil 6 ounces of coarse sea salt and a small piece of alum in a quart of water for ten minutes. Skim well.
Keep and store
Check the jars occasionally during winter.
If scum or mold forms, drain the brine and refill with freshly made brine.
Pickle in vinegar
To pickle in vinegar, add alum to enough vinegar to cover the fruits and boil with a few white peppercorns. Strain out the peppercorns before pouring the cooled vinegar into the jars.
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.
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Crab + vinegartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together302 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Barberries
- Provides the sour, tart flavour that defines the pickle.
- Siberian crabs
- Supply the main fruit body and tartness, holding shape when kept firm and unripe.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the fruit in the brine.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that preserves the fruit and sharpens its flavour in the vinegar pickle.
- Alum
- Helps the fruit stay firm and crisp during pickling.
The step that matters
Harvest before full ripeness. Overripe fruit softens and can burst in the pickle. Firm, fully coloured, unripe fruit holds its shape and keeps its texture in the brine.
“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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