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Walnut Pickle

A pickled walnut preserve made with vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Walnut Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Soak green walnuts in fresh water.

  2. Rub them with a coarse towel.

  3. Keep walnuts in brine for a week.

  4. Change the brine every third day.

  5. Soak in clear water for several hours.

  6. Boil walnuts in a mixture of vinegar and water until soft.

  7. Rub walnuts with a coarse towel.

  8. Soak them in weak vinegar for 1–2 days.

Make the pickling vinegar

  1. Prepare pickling vinegar by boiling together 1 gallon of strong vinegar with ginger, garlic, horseradish, red pepper, orange peel, mace, cloves, and black pepper.

  2. Pour the hot pickling vinegar over the walnuts.

Rest

  1. Let them sit for 2–3 weeks before using.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Green walnuts
Provide the main body of the pickle, softened by repeated soaking and boiling.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the pickling liquid.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that deepens the pickle's flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the hot pickling vinegar over the walnuts. Hot, fully prepared vinegar penetrates the walnuts and begins the preserving action. Using a weak or cooled liquid leaves the walnuts less acidic and less protected during the long rest.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, sugar, ginger, garlic. 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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