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Pickled Onions

A pickled onion recipe using silver-skin onions, salt, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Scald the onions and layer them with salt in a bowl.

  2. Let them stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain and wash the onions, then cover with clear water for 4 hours.

  4. Place the onions in a stone jar and fill with pure vinegar.

  5. Let them stand for 3 days.

Make the spiced pickle

  1. In a separate pot, combine strong vinegar, brown sugar, allspice, cloves, mace, celery seed, coriander seed, black pepper, and mustard seed. Pound until mixed well.

  2. Boil the mixture and let it cool until lukewarm.

  3. Pour it over the onions and cover the jar with a cloth.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Silver-skin onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and crisp-textured as they cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the onions, firming them and seasoning them before pickling.
Pure vinegar
Acidifies the onions, preserving them and giving them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidic brine that preserves the onions and carries the spices.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Draining and washing after the salt rest. Salt draws water out of the onions, so rinsing them well removes excess salt. Skipping or shortening the wash leaves the pickle too salty, while the onions must then soak in clear water to freshen before the vinegar is added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, celery, coriander):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, celery, coriander. 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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