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Onions, Spanish, and Beetroot to Pickle

A pickle of Spanish onions and beetroot, preserved in spiced vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,261 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onions, Spanish, and Beetroot to Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the onions and soak them in brine for 24 hours, then drain well.

  2. Gently wash the beetroots, avoiding any damage to the skin.

  3. Boil the beetroots for 1 hour, then let them cool overnight.

  4. Peel the beetroots and slice them.

Pack and store

  1. In wide-mouthed jars, layer the sliced beetroot and onions alternately.

  2. Pour cooled spiced vinegar over the layers.

  3. Cover the jars with bladder and store for use.

  4. Add 2-3 drops of cochineal to enhance the color if desired.

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 + beetroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Beetroot + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,630 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

Spanish onions
Brine soaking draws out sharpness, leaving a milder, crisp onion flavour in the pickle.
Beetroot
Supplies the main colour and an earthy sweetness that the vinegar balances.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy bite.

The step that matters

Gently wash the beetroots, avoiding any damage to the skin.. Beetroot loses its colour and juices when the skin is broken. Boiling a damaged beetroot lets pigment bleed into the water, leaving the flesh pale and the pickle dull.

Swap the beetroot

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Beetrootthe 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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