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Onions Young, to Pickle

A pickled young onion recipe using vinegar, pepper, allspice, garlic, and nutmeg.

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 place 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 look white and clear.

  3. Lay the peeled onions into a cloth.

Pickle and seal

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

  2. Put the onions into a jar and pour the boiling vinegar and spices over them.

  3. When the mixture is cold, 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

Small silver onions
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the spiced vinegar as they steep.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, warm bite that flavours the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that infuses into the vinegar and onions.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Peeling the onions after scalding. Onions must be hot enough that their skins loosen easily; if they are not scalded properly, the skins tear and the onions bruise. Cooling them fully before pouring over the hot vinegar also matters for a clean, firm texture.

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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