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Pickled Butternuts and Walnuts

A pickled mixture of butternuts and walnuts preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Butternuts and Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the nuts

  1. Gather butternuts and walnuts when soft enough to be pierced by a pin.

  2. Soak them in brine for 5 days, changing the brine twice.

  3. Drain and wipe the nuts with a coarse cloth.

  4. Pierce each nut with a large needle and soak in cold water for 6 hours.

Pickle and store

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, cloves, black peppercorns, allspice, and mace; boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Pack the nuts into small jars and pour the hot vinegar mixture over them.

  3. Repeat the packing and pouring process twice within a week.

  4. Seal the jars and store them away; they will be ready to eat in a month.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butternut + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butternut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butternuts and walnuts
Form the pickled body; their firm flesh holds texture after long soaking in brine and vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the nuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Allspice berries
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Black peppercorns
Add sharp, pungent spice flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pierce each nut before soaking in cold water. Piercing lets brine and vinegar penetrate the nut's dense flesh; unpierced nuts stay firm inside and can spoil or taste unevenly flavored.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butternut, walnut, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butternut, walnut, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice. 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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