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 ↓
Pickled Onions
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the onions
Peel the outer skins from the onions using a silver knife until they are clean and white.
Soak the onions in brine for three days.
Drain the onions and place them in a jar in layers, starting with a layer of onions three inches deep.
Season and pickle
Sprinkle each layer with chopped horseradish, cinnamon bark, cloves, and a little cayenne pepper.
Use ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped horseradish, 2 tablespoons cloves, and 4 teaspoons cinnamon bark for every gallon of pickles.
Bring the vinegar to a boil and add brown sugar at a ratio of 1 quart to 1 gallon of vinegar.
Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the onions in the 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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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Horseradish + cinnamontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together515 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,784 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,245 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
- Small silver-skinned onions
- Form the main body of the pickle, softening and absorbing the brine and vinegar flavours.
- Vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp taste.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
- Horseradish
- Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and heat that mellows during pickling.
The step that matters
Soaking the onions in brine. Brine draws water out of the onions and seasons them evenly; soaking too briefly leaves them tasting raw and under-seasoned, while the three-day soak gives the salt time to penetrate the layers.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, pepper, vinegar, sugar):
- Mustardfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, pepper, vinegar, sugar. 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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