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To Preserve Walnuts Black

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Preserve Walnuts Black

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak walnuts in saltwater, changing the water daily for nine days.

  2. Let them air until they begin to turn black.

  3. Pour boiling water over the walnuts and let them sit overnight.

  4. Drain the walnuts in a sieve.

  5. Insert a clove into each end of the walnuts.

  6. Boil the walnuts in a pan of boiling water for five minutes, then remove them.

  7. Make a thin syrup and scald the walnuts in it three to four times a day until they are black and shiny.

  8. Prepare a thick syrup with cloves and sliced ginger, skim it well, and add the walnuts.

  9. Boil the walnuts in the syrup for five to six minutes, then transfer them to jars.

  10. Cover the jars with brandy-dipped paper and seal them.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Walnut + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, sugar, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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