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Pickled English Walnuts

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pickled English Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the walnuts in strong saltwater for 12 days, changing the water several times.

  2. After 12 days, soak the walnuts in fresh water briefly, then dry them and place them in the sun until they turn black.

  3. Soak the walnuts in common vinegar for several weeks.

  4. Spice the vinegar with allspice, cloves, horseradish, prepared mustard, red pepper, garlic, and a little coarse sea salt.

  5. Boil the spiced vinegar and pour it over the walnuts while hot.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, clove, horseradish, mustard, pepper, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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