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Onion Pickles

A pickled onion recipe using milk, salt, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Onion Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Place white onions in warm milk on the stove.

  2. When they begin to boil, remove them.

  3. Rub off the outer skin with a coarse towel.

Pack and pickle

  1. Put the onions in jars and sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt.

  2. Add a small amount of mace, 6 sticks of cinnamon, some horseradish, and plenty of red pepper pods.

  3. Cover the onions well with 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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + radishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + radishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

  5. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

White onions
The main vegetable, becoming tender and mild as it is pickled.
Warm milk
Softens the sharp bite of the onions before pickling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the onions.
Horseradish (in the method)
Adds a sharp, pungent heat to the pickling liquid.
Red pepper pods
Add chili heat to the jars.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the pickles.

The step that matters

Cover the onions well with vinegar. Onions left exposed above the liquid can spoil and lose the protection that vinegar's acidity provides. Keeping every piece fully submerged helps the pickle stay stable and flavourful.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, milk, cinnamon, horse, radish, pepper, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, cinnamon, horse, radish, 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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