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 ↓
Pickled Walnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the walnuts
Select walnuts that are tender enough to be easily punctured by a pin.
Place the walnuts in a jar and pour boiling hot strong brine over them.
After two weeks, remove the walnuts from the brine.
Drain the walnuts.
Lay them in the sun until they turn black.
Spice and pickle
Boil the vinegar with allspice, cloves, black peppercorns, and mace.
Pour the hot spiced vinegar over the blackened walnuts in the clean jar.
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.
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + macetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together553 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Walnuts
- Main ingredient that softens in brine and darkens to black in the sun.
- Vinegar
- Acidic base that preserves the walnuts and carries the spice flavour.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the spiced vinegar.
- Cloves
- Contribute strong aromatic warmth to the spiced vinegar.
The step that matters
Selecting tender walnuts. Walnuts must be tender enough to be punctured by a pin, because the brine and vinegar can only penetrate and flavour soft, young shells and kernels; hard walnuts stay bitter and unpickled inside.
“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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