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Preserve

Pickled Onions

Pickled onions are small onions preserved in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions, keeping the tops and roots intact.

  2. Soak the peeled onions in strongly salted cold water for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the onions and dry each onion with a cloth.

Pickle

  1. Place the onions in glass jars and fill each jar with cold vinegar.

  2. Pour the vinegar out and measure it.

  3. Heat the vinegar until scalding hot with whole cloves, cinnamon, mace, and peppercorns.

  4. Let the vinegar cool, then pour it into the jars, dividing the spices among them.

  5. Cover the jars to keep out dust.

Repeat on days two and three

  1. On the second day, pour out the vinegar, scald it again, and pour it back over the onions.

  2. On the third day, pour out the vinegar, scald it again, and pour it back over the onions.

  3. Seal the jars securely to keep out air.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Small, round onions
Provide the crisp, firm texture that holds up through pickling.
Cold vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their tang.
Mixed spice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that infuses into the vinegar and onions.

The step that matters

Soaking the onions in strongly salted water. Salt draws moisture out of the onions and firms their texture, so a weak brine or a shortened soak can leave the onions soft and watery in the jar.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, cinnamon, mace. 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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