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Onion Pickle

A preserved onion dish made by pickling with vinegar, salt, sugar, spices, and mustard seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Onion Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and place them in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Cover the onions with water and dissolve the salt in it. As the water heats, remove the kettle from the stove.

  3. Pour the onions and water into a jar and let sit for two days.

  4. Drain the onions for several hours.

Pickle

  1. Soak the onions in plain vinegar overnight, then drain again for 3 hours.

  2. Place the onions back in a jar and cover with boiled vinegar. Add the brown sugar, allspice, celery seed, white mustard seed, and turmeric.

  3. Seal the jar and let it sit for a month.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Allspice + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Small white onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and absorbing the brine and vinegar flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the onions and seasons them during the brining stage.
Plain vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the vinegar's sharpness with sweetness and adds depth of flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavor that mellows during the long pickling period.

The step that matters

Draining after the salt brine. Rinsing and draining the onions thoroughly before adding vinegar removes excess salt. Too much residual salt makes the finished pickle harshly salty and can soften the onions unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, celery, mustard, turmeric. 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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