Skip to main content
Main

Walnut Pickle

A preserved walnut dish pickled in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Walnut Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Soak the green walnuts in fresh water.

  2. Rub them with a coarse towel.

  3. Keep the walnuts in brine for one week, changing the brine every third day.

  4. Soak the walnuts in clear water for several hours.

  5. Boil the walnuts in a mixture of vinegar and water until soft.

  6. Rub the walnuts with a coarse towel.

  7. Soak them in weak vinegar for one to two days.

Make the pickle and finish

  1. Prepare a pickling solution by boiling together 1 gallon of strong vinegar with ginger, garlic, horseradish, red pepper, orange peel, mace, cloves, and black pepper.

  2. Pour the hot pickling solution over the walnuts.

  3. Let them sit for two to three weeks before using.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
The main ingredient, softened by soaking and boiling so it can take up the pickle.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the pickling solution.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that carries through the pickle.

The step that matters

Soaking and rubbing the green walnuts before pickling. Green walnuts contain bitter, staining compounds; repeated soaking and brining draw these out so the pickle tastes mellow rather than bitter. Skipping or shortening these stages leaves the flavour harsh.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, sugar, ginger, garlic. 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

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes