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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions are small white onions preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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. Select small white onions and place them in cold water with ½ cup coarse sea salt.

  2. Heat the water until it is scalding hot, then remove the onions and peel off the skins.

  3. Lay the peeled onions on a cloth to dry.

Pickle

  1. Boil ½ ounce allspice and ½ ounce cloves in 1 quart vinegar.

  2. Remove the spices and pour the hot vinegar over the onions.

Store

  1. Once the vinegar is cold, seal the jar and store it in a dry place.

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. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Small white onions
The main vegetable, which takes on the sharp, tangy flavor of the vinegar as it pickles.
Vinegar
Acid that preserves the onions and gives them their sour flavor.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds a warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Let the vinegar cool completely before sealing the jar. Hot liquid sealed in a jar produces steam and pressure that can loosen the lid and weaken the preservation, so the vinegar should be fully cold before the jar is closed.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, clove. 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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