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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the walnuts

  1. Collect walnuts in mid-June.

  2. Make a strong brine with salt and water that can float an egg.

  3. Boil the brine and let it cool.

  4. Place walnuts in jars and cover with the brine.

  5. Let the jars sit in a cool place for 3 weeks.

  6. After 3 weeks, drain the walnuts in a colander.

Pickle in vinegar

  1. Wash and dry the jars.

  2. Return the walnuts to the jars and cover with cider vinegar.

  3. Let the jars sit for 1 month.

  4. After a month, remove the vinegar.

Add spices and seal

  1. Rinse and dry the jars.

  2. Add the walnuts back to the jars.

  3. Sprinkle the walnuts with mustard seed.

  4. Boil the spices in enough cider vinegar to cover the walnuts for 10 minutes.

  5. Once cooled, pour the mixture over the walnuts.

  6. Seal the jars tightly to keep out air.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 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

Walnuts
The main ingredient, which softens and darkens during the long brine and vinegar soaks.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the walnuts and sharpens their flavour.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the spiced vinegar.
Cinnamon stick
Adds sweet, woody aroma to the spiced vinegar.
Black pepper
Adds sharp heat and aroma to the spiced vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter note and aroma to the pickle.

The step that matters

Make the brine strong enough to float an egg. A dense salt brine draws moisture and bitter compounds out of the walnuts and slows spoilage. A weak brine may not protect the nuts, so the salt level matters.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, clove, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, cider):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, clove, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, mustard, cider. 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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