Skip to main content
Main

Onions

Onions pickled in white wine vinegar with allspice and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the brown skin off the onions.

  2. Boil water in a tin stew-pan and add the onions until they look clear.

  3. Remove the onions quickly with a slotted spoon and place them on a clean cloth.

  4. Cover the onions with another cloth.

  5. Scald more onions.

Pickle and store

  1. Let the onions cool, then place them in a jar or glass bottle.

  2. Pour hot (not boiling) white wine vinegar over the onions.

  3. Add 1 ounce of allspice and 1 ounce of black pepper for each gallon of vinegar.

  4. Once cooled, cover the jar.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 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 white round onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and mild as they soak.
Best white wine vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its tang.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Whole black pepper
Adds gentle heat and spice to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour hot (not boiling) white wine vinegar over the onions. Vinegar that is too hot can soften the onions and cook them, while cooling it too far slows flavour absorption. Hot but not boiling vinegar keeps the onions firm and lets the spices infuse steadily.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, allspice, pepper. 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.

More pickled onions recipes

and Apples 3and Cucumbers 3 See all 163 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes