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Walnuts Pickled White

A preserved walnut dish pickled in salt, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Walnuts Pickled White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Pare the walnuts until the white kernel is visible all around.

  2. Place the walnuts in a brine made with 1 pound of coarse sea salt and 1 gallon of water, weighing them down to keep them submerged for 5 hours.

  3. Simmer the walnuts in a pan of clear water for 10 minutes.

  4. Transfer the walnuts to a pan of cold water with a handful of coarse sea salt.

  5. Remove the walnuts quickly.

  6. Dry the walnuts between two soft cloths.

  7. Gently wipe each walnut with soft linen.

Pickle and seal

  1. Place the walnuts in clean, dry jars, mixing in mace, cloves, and whole pepper as you go.

  2. Fill the jars with the best white wine vinegar.

  3. Cover the jars with strong paper.

  4. Pour melted mutton suet over the top of the jars.

  5. Seal the jars tightly.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Largest walnuts
Form the pickle's main body, absorbing the brine and vinegar flavours as they steep.
Best white wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickled walnuts.
Cloves
Adds pungent, aromatic spice flavour that deepens the pickle.
Whole pepper
Adds sharp, peppery heat and aroma to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Salting in brine for 5 hours. The brine draws moisture out of the walnuts and seasons them through. Too short and they stay bland; the salt also firms the flesh so it holds up to the vinegar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, white wine, vinegar, mutton, clove, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, white wine, vinegar, mutton, clove, 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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