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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a brine and vinegar mixture, seasoned with peppercorns, mace, ginger, horseradish, mustard seed, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts while they are still soft enough to pierce with a pin.

  2. Soak walnuts in a brine of 1 lb salt and 1 gallon water for 6 days.

  3. Change the brine and soak for an additional 14 days.

  4. Soak in brine a third time until needed, then drain the walnuts.

  5. Spread walnuts on dishes and expose to air until they turn black, about 1 day.

Make the pickling liquor and jar

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, peppercorns, mace, bruised ginger, horseradish, mustard seed, and garlic.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Place walnuts in jars and pour the vinegar mixture over them.

  4. Once cooled, cover jars tightly and store on their sides for at least 1 month.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Horseradish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 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

Walnuts (in the method)
Main ingredient that is salted, darkened in air, and pickled into a dark, firm, tangy preserve.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the walnuts and seasons them during the long brine soaks.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour that deepens over the month of storage.

The step that matters

Exposing the walnuts to air until they turn black. Walnut flesh darkens through oxidation when exposed to air. Stopping too early leaves the pickle pale, and the walnuts must be fully dry on the surface before the hot vinegar is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, horseradish, mustard, clove, 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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