Name: Peach Pickle
Ingredients: large cling peaches; 1 pound sugar; ½ ounce cloves; ½ ounce cinnamon bark; good cider vinegar

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 ↓

Peach Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Select ripe but firm peaches and wash them.
Rub off the fuzz with a coarse cloth.
Soak the peaches in strong salt-water for 2-3 days.
Soak in clear water overnight, then wipe dry.
Place peaches in a gallon jar and sprinkle with sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.
Pour enough cider vinegar over the peaches to cover them.
Invert a saucer over the top to keep the peaches submerged.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Swap the peach

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

Applefits better
Quincefits better
Vanillafits better
Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, cider, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.