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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in a brine of salt, vinegar, nutmeg, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the outer skins off the onions.

  2. Make a brine with boiling water and enough salt to float an egg; pour it over the onions and let them stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, drain the onions.

Pickle and seal

  1. Scald the vinegar with the nutmeg and mace, then pour it over the hot onions.

  2. Place the onions in a quart can or bottle and seal.

  3. They will be ready for use in a week.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Small white or yellow onions
Provide the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and mild as they cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the onions and seasons them during the overnight brine.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp flavor.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling vinegar.
Mace
Adds a delicate, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar over hot onions. Vinegar must be scalded and poured over the hot onions so the spices steep and the onions are sealed in a sealed container; the acid then preserves them. Sealing while hot helps the jar stay sterile enough to keep.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, nutmeg, 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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