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Pickle Walnuts

Pickled walnuts soaked in a strong brine, sun-dried, layered with onions and cloves, then steeped in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Make a very strong brine and soak the walnuts in it for 1 week.

  2. Drain the walnuts and place them in the sun until they turn black.

Pickle

  1. In a jar, layer the walnuts with 2 onions stuck with cloves.

  2. Pour boiling vinegar over the walnuts and onions, seasoned with black mustard seed, allspice, black pepper, and a little mace.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Main ingredient that softens in brine and darkens in the sun, becoming the pickled product.
Coarse sea salt
Forms the strong brine that draws out moisture and firms the walnuts before pickling.
Boiling vinegar
Acid that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
2 onions
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid as it infuses.

The step that matters

Soaking the walnuts in a very strong brine. Too weak a brine lets the walnuts spoil or ferment before pickling, while a strong salt solution draws out moisture and protects them during the long soak.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, onion, clove, vinegar, mustard, allspice, pepper. 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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