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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brine

  1. Peel and trim the small onions nicely.

  2. Place them in glass jars.

  3. Cover the peeled onions with a brine made from ½ pound of salt and 4 quarts of water.

  4. Let them stand for 24 hours.

Spice the vinegar

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 heaped teaspoons of allspice, 2 heaped teaspoons of black pepper, and 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt with 1 quart of vinegar.

  2. Pour the mixture over the onions.

Scald and pickle

  1. Drain the onions.

  2. Cover them with boiling water, then pour it off.

  3. While boiling the vinegar, dissolve ½ ounce of alum in it.

  4. Put the onions in jars and cover with boiling vinegar spiced with whole black pepper and allspice.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Small onions
Provide the crisp, pickled vegetable that is the main product of the recipe.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Salt
Draws water out of the onions during brining, firming their texture.
Alum
Helps keep the onions firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Draining and scalding the brined onions. Salt brining draws water and salt into the onions; draining and rinsing with boiling water removes surface salt so the pickling vinegar is not diluted or overly salty, and the onions stay firm as the hot vinegar is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, vinegar. 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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