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Onions Young, to Pickle

A pickle of young silver onions in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Onions Young, to Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Choose small silver onions and soak them in cold water.

  2. When the water is scalding hot, remove the onions with a slotted spoon and peel off the skins until they are white and clear.

  3. Lay the peeled onions in a cloth.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, boil 1 quart of vinegar with ½ ounce of black pepper, ¼ ounce of allspice, ¼ ounce of garlic, and 1 sliced nutmeg.

  2. Place the onions in a jar and pour the boiling vinegar and spices over them.

Store

  1. Once cooled, cover the jar with leather.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that gives the pickling liquid depth.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that infuses into the vinegar and onions.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Peel the onions at the right moment. Remove the onions from the scalding water as soon as the skins loosen. Leaving them in too long softens the flesh and cooks them, so they lose firmness and the pickle turns mushy. Peeling them while still hot is easier, but they must stay intact to hold their shape in the jar.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, pepper, allspice, garlic. 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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