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Pickled Walnuts

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Gather walnuts between June 25 and June 30.

  2. Make a brine with boiled water and enough coarse sea salt to float an egg when cold.

  3. Skim the brine while it boils.

  4. Pour the brine over the walnuts and let them soak for 12 days.

  5. Drain the walnuts and place them in a jar.

  6. Boil cider vinegar with peppercorns, cloves, allspice, mustard, ginger, mace, and horseradish, then cool it.

  7. Pour the cooled vinegar over the walnuts, cover tightly, and store for a year before using.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, ginger):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, mustard, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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