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Walnut Pickle

A pickle of white walnuts soaked in salt water, sun‑dried, then boiled with spices and vinegar, left to sit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Soak the white walnuts in salt water for three days.

  2. Place the walnuts in the sun until they turn black.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil the mustard seed, pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and horse‑radish in the vinegar.

  2. Cover the walnuts with the mixture and let them sit for three to four weeks.

  3. If desired, pour off the liquid for catsup and bottle it.

  4. Cover the walnuts again with cold 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

White walnuts
Provide the main body of the pickle, becoming softer and darker as they steep.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and gives the pickle its sharp acidity.
Mustard seed
Adds pungency and a sharp, slightly bitter flavour to the spiced vinegar.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma that complements the walnuts.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, sweet aromatic depth to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Soaking and sunning the walnuts. The walnuts must be fully covered by the brine and then dried in sun until black; skipping or shortening these steps leaves the walnuts pale and can let them spoil, since the salt and vinegar only preserve well when the nuts are fully submerged.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, mustard, pepper, clove, nutmeg, horse, radish):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, mustard, pepper, clove, nutmeg, horse, radish. 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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