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Pickling White Onions

A method for pickling small and large white onions in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,901 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Pickling White Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select small white onions and one large one.

  2. Remove the outer skin.

  3. Place the onions in a jar.

  4. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg and cover the onions.

Brine

  1. Let them stand for three days.

  2. Discard the brine and wash the onions.

Pickle

  1. Boil the onions for five minutes in equal parts vinegar and water.

  2. Remove the onions from the vinegar and let them stand until the next day.

  3. Drain the onions and stick the large onion full of cloves.

  4. Cover all the onions with cold vinegar, adding 12 peppercorns for each quart of 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. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White onions
The main vegetable, which softens and turns mild as it sits in brine and vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp, tangy flavor.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the large onion as it pickles.
Peppercorns
Adds a mild, sharp pepper aroma to the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Make a brine strong enough to float an egg. Salt draws water out of the onions and firms them, so a weak brine can leave them soft and more open to spoilage during the long soak.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, 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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