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Walnut Pickle

A preserved walnut dish pickled in vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Walnut Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Soak the green walnuts in fresh water.

  2. Rub the soaked walnuts with a coarse towel.

  3. Keep the walnuts in brine for a week, changing the brine every third day.

  4. Soak the walnuts in clear water for several hours.

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

  6. Rub the boiled walnuts with a coarse towel.

  7. Soak the rubbed walnuts in weak vinegar for 1-2 days.

Pickle

  1. Prepare a pickling liquid by boiling ginger, garlic, horseradish, mace, and black pepper in 1 gallon of strong vinegar.

  2. Pour the hot pickling liquid over the walnuts.

  3. Let the walnuts 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. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + horseradishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together259 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

Green and tender walnuts
Are the main ingredient, softened by brining and boiling until tender.
Strong vinegar
Acidifies the pickling liquid, preserving the walnuts and giving them their sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the pickling liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the pickling liquid.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that mellows during the long rest.

The step that matters

Boil the walnuts until soft, then rub them. Boiling softens the walnuts enough to be pickled, and rubbing removes their skins and bitterness. Skipping or shortening either step leaves the pickle tough or bitter, since the walnuts are not cooked later.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, vinegar, ginger, garlic, horseradish, pepper, orange):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, ginger, garlic, horseradish, pepper, orange. 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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