Skip to main content
Main

Cherry Pickles

Pickled cherries preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cherry Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak cherries in cold water with coarse sea salt for 18 hours.

  2. In a pot, season vinegar with allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and sugar.

Pickle

  1. Heat the seasoned vinegar until hot, then pour it over the cherries.

  2. Repeat this process for three consecutive days.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Provide the fruit that is softened and flavoured by the brine and spiced vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, preserved flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the cherries and seasons them during the initial soak.

The step that matters

Repeating the hot vinegar pour for three days. Each hot pour adds flavour and gradually changes the fruit, so skipping days or pouring cold vinegar can leave the cherries under-seasoned. Heating the vinegar until hot helps the spices and sugar dissolve and infuse into the fruit.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes