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Crab Apple Pickle

Pickled crab apples in a spiced vinegar and sugar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Crab Apple Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine vinegar and sugar in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Add cloves, cinnamon, and allspice to the boiling mixture.

Cook the crab apples

  1. Remove the blossom end from the crab apples.

  2. Add the crab apples to the pot, ensuring they are not crowded.

  3. Cook until easily pierced with a straw.

Seal

  1. Seal the cooked apples in glass fruit jars.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it a sharp flavour.
Brown or maple sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness and adds sweetness and depth to the syrup.
Crab apples
Form the body of the pickle, softening as they cook in the spiced syrup.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aromatic flavour to the syrup.
Allspice
Adds a warm, peppery aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Cook until easily pierced with a straw. Crab apples need enough heat time to soften through while keeping their shape. Undercooked fruit stays firm and may not absorb the syrup, while overcooking makes them mushy and breaks them apart.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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