Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Pickled Walnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Brine the walnuts
Gather walnuts when they can be pierced with a needle.
Cover walnuts with brine made from 1½ pounds of salt in 1 gallon of water and let them stand in a cool place for three weeks.
Drain walnuts in a colander, wash, and wipe the jars.
Steep in vinegar
Return walnuts to the jars and cover them with the best cider vinegar for one month.
After a month, take walnuts out, rinse, and wipe the jars again.
Put walnuts back in the jars and sprinkle with 1 ounce of mustard seed.
Spice and seal
In a pot, combine enough vinegar to cover the walnuts with 1 ounce of cloves, 1 ounce of black pepper, 1 ounce of stick cinnamon, ½ ounce of mace, and ½ ounce of ground ginger, and boil for 10 minutes.
When the mixture is cold, pour it over the walnuts and seal the jars tightly.
The walnuts are ready to eat when soft, but they improve with one to two years of storage.
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.
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
-
Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,380 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,038 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,431 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Walnuts (in the method)
- Form the pickled base, softening and absorbing the brine and vinegar flavors as they steep.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the walnuts and seasons them during the brine stage.
- Cider vinegar
- Provides the acidic pickling liquid that preserves the walnuts and gives them their tang.
- Cloves
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
- Black pepper
- Adds sharp, pungent heat that flavors the pickling liquid.
- Stick cinnamon
- Adds sweet, woody aroma to the pickling liquid.
The step that matters
Brining the walnuts for three weeks. Salt draws water out of the walnuts and firms them while they cure. Using too little salt or too short a time can leave them soggy or unsafe, so the brine must fully cover them and stand the full period.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, mustard, clove, pepper, cinnamon, ginger):
- Allspicefits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, mustard, clove, pepper, cinnamon, ginger. 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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