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Dessert

Pickled Apples

Pickled apples are sweet apples preserved in a vinegar and sugar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the apples, cut them in halves, and remove the cores.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Combine vinegar and sugar in a large pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim the mixture well.

  3. Place the spices in a thin muslin bag and add to the pot.

Cook and store

  1. Add the apples to the pot and stew slowly until they are soft.

  2. Remove the apples from the pot.

  3. Let the vinegar boil down.

  4. Pour the reduced vinegar over the fruit.

  5. Cover the apples and store them away.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the fruit that softens during stewing and absorbs the spiced vinegar flavour.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving and acidic base that gives the pickle its sharp tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the pickle.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma to the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Stew the apples slowly. Gentle heat softens the apples evenly while keeping them whole. Boiling hard can break the fruit into a mush and cloud the pickling liquid.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice, pepper. 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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