Name: To Pickle While Walnuts
Ingredients: walnuts; salt; water; mace; sliced nutmeg; hot vinegar

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pickle While Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Pare the walnuts until the white appears.
Simmer the walnuts in salt and water for ten minutes.
Drain the walnuts and place them in bottles.
Add a little mace and sliced nutmeg to the bottles.
Pour hot vinegar over the walnuts and cork immediately.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,230 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Walnut + macetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together765 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,769 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,415 recipes