Skip to main content
Main

Walnuts Pickled White

A preserved walnut dish soaked in salted brine and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and laurel are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,516 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnuts Pickled White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Peel the walnuts to expose the white kernels.

  2. Prepare a brine with 1 pound of salt per gallon of water and soak the peeled walnuts for 4 hours.

  3. Bring a pan of pure water to a boil, then simmer the walnuts for 10-12 minutes.

  4. Transfer the walnuts to a pan of cold water with a little salt for 10 minutes.

  5. Move the walnuts to a pickle made with 2½ pounds of salt per gallon of water and let them soak for 30 minutes.

  6. Remove the walnuts and lay them between cloths to dry.

Pack and pickle

  1. Wipe each walnut separately and place them in clean white earthenware jars with the spice mixture.

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 + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Mace + laureltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
The main ingredient; brining and simmering change their texture and colour as they pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the walnuts during the brine and pickle soaks.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquor.
Cloves
Adds pungent, aromatic spice flavour to the pickled walnuts.
White pepper
Adds sharp, gentle heat and aroma to the pickling spice mixture.

The step that matters

Simmering the walnuts. Simmering for the stated 10-12 minutes softens the walnuts and sets their texture before they absorb the pickle. Simmering too long can make them mushy, so timing matters.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, mace, clove, laurel):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, mace, clove, laurel. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes