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Dessert

Small White Onions

A pickled dish of small white onions preserved in a vinegar, mace, and pepper brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Small White Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the small silver onions.

  2. Soak the onions in salt water for one day.

  3. Drain the onions and place them in bottles.

Make and add the pickling liquid

  1. Boil mace, whole red peppers, and vinegar together.

  2. Let the mixture cool and pour it over the onions in the bottles.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Small silver onions
Provide the main vegetable that becomes crisp and tangy once pickled.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the onions and seasons them during the overnight soak.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Whole red peppers
Add heat and colour to the pickling liquid as it steeps.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Soaking the onions in salt water. Salt draws water out of the onions through osmosis, firming their texture and reducing harshness. Soaking for the full day lets the salt penetrate, so the onions stay crisp rather than soft once pickled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar. 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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