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Pickled Walnuts

Walnuts are soaked, brined, and pickled in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the walnuts

  1. Dissolve salt in water and soak walnuts, stirring them night and morning.

  2. Change the brine every three days; soak for 12 days for immediate use or 9 days for longer storage.

  3. Drain walnuts and expose them to air until they turn black, about 12 hours.

Pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with salt, black pepper, ginger, mace, cloves, and mustard seed for 5 minutes.

  2. Place walnuts in a stone jar and pour the hot vinegar over them.

  3. Once the pickle cools, cover the jar and store in a dry place.

  4. Ensure walnuts are always covered with vinegar and boil any added vinegar.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 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

Walnuts (in the method)
Form the pickled body; they soften in brine and darken as they are exposed to air.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, giving the pickle its sharp, acidic flavour.
Salt
Seasons the brine and draws moisture out of the walnuts during soaking.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that infuses into the hot vinegar.
Black pepper
Adds warm, biting spice that flavours the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds aromatic, warming flavour to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Keep walnuts fully covered with vinegar. Walnuts exposed to air can spoil, and any surface left above the liquid is open to mould and bacteria. Keeping them submerged in acidic vinegar protects the pickle during storage.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, ginger, clove, mustard. 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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