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Onions, Spanish, Pickled

Pickled onions soaked in brine, capsicum, cloves, pepper, and vinegar, simmered until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Capsicum and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,571 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onions, Spanish, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and soak them in brine for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the onions and place them in a wide-mouthed jar.

  3. Add the sliced capsicum, cloves, and whole pepper for every three onions.

Pickle and store

  1. Nearly fill the jar with vinegar and cover it with a lid.

  2. Place the jar in a large pan of cold water and simmer gently until the onions are soft, about 1.5 hours.

  3. Add more vinegar if needed, cover the jar tightly, and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Capsicum + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Capsicum + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + capsicumtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together23,390 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish onions
Main vegetable; softens during simmering and becomes tender and mellow in the vinegar.
Brine
Salt draws water out of the onions and seasons them before pickling.
Vinegar
Acid that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Sliced capsicum
Adds sweetness and crisp texture and flavour to the jar.

The step that matters

Simmering the sealed jar gently. Simmering the jar in water heats the onions slowly so they soften evenly without boiling the vinegar away or cracking the jar. Too much heat can break the texture and cause the jar to crack.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, capsicum, clove, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, capsicum, clove, pepper, 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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