Name: Pickled Carrots
Ingredients: small carrots; salt; vinegar; 1 bay leaf; 3-4 whole cloves

Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pickled Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the carrots, then rub and wash off the skin.
Parboil the carrots in salted water until just tender, then drain and place in a jar.
Boil enough vinegar to cover the carrots and pour it into the jar. Let it sit for 24 hours.
Drain the vinegar, boil it again, and add the bay leaf and cloves.
Pour the hot vinegar back into the jar with the carrots, add a little salt, and seal the jar when nearly cold.

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.

Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Carrot + vinegartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,892 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).