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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions are small onions preserved in a spiced vinegar or brine solution.

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 the onions in glass jars.

  3. Pour a mixture of 2 heaped teaspoons whole allspice, 2 heaped teaspoons black pepper, 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt, and 1 quart vinegar over the onions.

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

Brine and pickle

  1. Drain the onions.

  2. Cover the onions with boiling water and pour it off.

  3. Place the onions in jars and cover with boiling vinegar spiced with whole black pepper and allspice.

  4. Dissolve ½ ounce 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
Form the main body of the pickle and absorb the spiced vinegar flavour.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickled onions.
Salt
Draws water out of the onions and seasons them during brining.
Alum
Helps the onions stay firm and crisp during pickling.

The step that matters

Covering the onions with boiling water and pouring it off. Brief scalding softens the outer surface so the onions take up the vinegar and spices evenly, while the boiling vinegar must be fully poured over so the onions stay crisp.

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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