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Preserve

To Preferve Walnuts White

A method for preserving white walnuts in a sweet syrup with ginger, mace, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Preferve Walnuts White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Remove the shells from the walnuts until the white appears.

  2. Soak the walnuts in salt and water.

  3. Boil the walnuts in a large saucepan of soft water for 5 minutes.

  4. Drain the walnuts and place them between two cloths to prepare a thin syrup.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Boil the walnuts gently in the syrup for 4–5 minutes.

  2. Transfer the walnuts to a jar, sealing tightly to prevent air from entering.

  3. The next day, boil the walnuts again.

Add the spiced syrup and seal

  1. Make a fresh thick syrup with sugar, ginger, and mace, boiling and skimming it well.

  2. Boil the walnuts in the syrup and place them in glass jars.

  3. Cover the jars with papers dipped in brandy and seal with bladders to keep out air.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  4. Walnut + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Large french walnuts
Form the main body of the preserve, staying firm through repeated boiling and soaking.
Sugar
Forms a thick syrup that sweetens the walnuts and helps preserve them.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma to the syrup.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm spice aroma to the syrup.
Brandy
Adds aroma to the sealed jars and its alcohol helps discourage spoilage.

The step that matters

Making the fresh thick syrup and skimming it well. Sugar concentration is what preserves the walnuts, so the syrup must be thick. Skimming removes foam and impurities that could ferment or spoil the preserve.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, sugar, ginger, brandy. 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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