Name: Walnuts and Butternuts
Ingredients: fresh walnuts or butternuts; large needle; brine; vinegar; allspice

Why it works: Walnut and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Walnuts and Butternuts

Ingredients

Directions

Harvest walnuts or butternuts in summer when tender enough to prick with a large needle.
Rub off the outer skin.
Soak in brine for five days, starting on Monday and finishing on Saturday.
Drain and wipe the nuts after removing from brine.
Prick each nut two or three times with a needle and place in a large pan of cold water for half a day.
Prepare the vinegar-pickle with allspice and boil for ten minutes.
Pack the nuts in jars and pour the hot pickle over them.

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.

Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together553 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,769 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).