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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

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 the onions

  1. Select small onions of uniform size, peel, and trim them nicely.

  2. Place them in glass jars.

Pickle

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 heaped teaspoons of whole 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 in the jars.

  3. Alternatively, cover peeled onions with a brine made from ½ pound of salt in 4 quarts of water and let stand for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the onions.

  5. Cover with boiling water, then pour it off.

  6. Place the onions in jars.

  7. Cover with boiling vinegar spiced with whole black pepper and allspice.

  8. If desired, dissolve ½ ounce of alum in the boiling vinegar.

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
Are the main vegetable, becoming tender and mellow as they pickle in the spiced vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp flavour.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the vinegar and onions.
Black pepper
Adds pungent, aromatic heat that infuses into the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Cover with boiling water, then pour it off. Blanching the onions briefly in boiling water helps loosen their skins and softens their raw bite, so they take up the brine more evenly. Pouring off the water before adding the vinegar keeps the pickling liquid from being diluted.

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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