Name: Walnut Pickle
Ingredients: walnuts; salt water; garlic; allspice; black pepper; vinegar; cloves (optional)

Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Walnut Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Gather walnuts around June 10, when they are soft enough to pierce with a pin.
Soak the walnuts in salt water for two weeks.
Remove the walnuts, scrape them, and rub with a coarse towel.
Soak the walnuts in fresh water for three days, changing the water daily.
Combine garlic, allspice, and black pepper in vinegar, then heat until boiling.
Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the walnuts.
If the walnuts are old and hard, scald them in an iron pot before pickling.

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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together553 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, garlic, allspice, pepper, vinegar):

Tarragonfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Parsleyfits about as well
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, garlic, allspice, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.