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To Pickle Walnuts Black

A method for pickling walnuts in a seasoned vinegar solution, resulting in blackened, preserved nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts Black

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts when the shell is soft, indicated by inserting a pin.

  2. Soak walnuts in a strong saltwater solution for nine days, stirring twice daily and changing the solution every three days.

  3. Drain and let walnuts air dry until they turn black.

Pickle and age

  1. Place walnuts in stone jars and pour boiling vinegar over them. Cover jars and let them cool.

  2. Boil the vinegar three more times, allowing it to cool between each boiling.

  3. Seal jars with paper and a bladder, and let them sit for two months.

Make the pickle

  1. For the pickle, boil two quarts of vinegar with ½ ounce each of mace and cloves, 1 ounce of black pepper, 1 ounce of Jamaica pepper, ginger, long pepper, and 2 ounces of coarse sea salt for ten minutes.

  2. Pour the hot pickle over the walnuts and seal again.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 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; soaking and drying turn the flesh firm and darken the skin.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the walnuts and preserves them during the saltwater soak and in the pickle.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the pickle.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Soaking the walnuts in saltwater for nine days. Salt draws moisture out of the walnuts and slows spoilage. The brine must stay strong, so it is changed every three days and stirred twice daily to keep the salt evenly distributed.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, clove, pepper, ginger. 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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