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To Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Pare the walnuts until the white appears, being careful not to cut too deep.

  2. Soak the walnuts in salt and water to prevent them from turning black.

  3. Boil the walnuts in a saucepan of boiling water with a little salt for five minutes.

  4. Spread the boiled walnuts between two clean cloths to cool.

Pickle and store

  1. Place the cooled walnuts in wide-mouthed bottles and fill with distilled vinegar.

  2. Add a blade or two of mace and 4 large teaspoons of eating oil to each bottle.

  3. Cork the bottles well and store them in a dry place.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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

Large french walnuts
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing vinegar and flavour as they steep.
Distilled vinegar
Acidifies the walnuts and preserves them while they steep.
Eating oil
Adds richness and helps coat the walnuts in the pickling liquid.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Pare only to the white. Walnut skin is bitter and tannic, and the white flesh beneath is what takes up the vinegar. Cutting too deep removes too much of the nut and can expose it to discolouring, so stop as soon as the white shows.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, vinegar, mace, wine, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, mace, wine, clove, nutmeg. 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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