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Pickled Walnuts, Pickled

Pickles walnuts in a salted brine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Procure young walnuts, ensuring they are not woody, and prick them well with a fork.

  2. Prepare a strong brine with 4 lbs of salt in 1 gallon of water and soak the walnuts for 9 days, changing the brine every third day.

  3. Drain the walnuts and place them on a dish in the sun until they turn completely black, which will take 2 to 3 days.

Pickle and store

  1. Prepare dry jars and fill them with the walnuts, leaving some space at the top.

  2. Boil vinegar with the spices for 10 minutes and pour it hot over the walnuts, ensuring they are fully covered.

  3. Seal the jars and store them in a dry place; they will be ready to use in a month and can last 2 to 3 years.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 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
Young, unripe walnuts are the pickled ingredient; their soft shells let brine and vinegar penetrate.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and preserves them while the brine works on their flavour.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the walnuts and keeps them stable in the jar once fully covered.
Whole black pepper
Adds pungent, aromatic heat to the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Drain and sun-blacken the walnuts until fully black. The walnuts must turn completely black before jarring, as the oxidation of their tannins during sun exposure develops the characteristic dark colour and flavour. Stopping early leaves them pale and under-developed.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Sesamefits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, ginger, 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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