Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Soak the walnuts in strong brine for 6 days.

  2. Drain and wipe the walnuts dry, then pierce them with a large needle.

  3. Soak the pierced walnuts in cold water for 6 hours, then drain off the water.

Pack and pickle

  1. Pack the walnuts into jars.

  2. Boil the vinegar with sugar, pepper, mace, and allspice for 6 minutes, then pour it over the walnuts.

Repeat the vinegar pouring

  1. After 2 and 4 days, heat the vinegar and pour it over the walnuts again.

  2. After standing for 1 more week, repeat the heating and pouring process.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
The main ingredient, which softens and takes on the pickling flavours as it stands in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Whole pepper
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquor.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquor.
Whole allspice
Adds a clove-like, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquor.

The step that matters

Piercing and soaking the walnuts. Piercing the walnuts lets the vinegar penetrate the nut. Draining and wiping them dry before piercing keeps excess brine out of the jars, so the vinegar stays clear and the pickle keeps well.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper, allspice, walnut, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, allspice, walnut, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes