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Onion Pickles

A preserved onion dish made by brining, simmering, drying, and vinegar pickling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Onion Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the silver onions and soak them in strong brine for three days.

  2. Remove the onions and simmer them in a mixture of milk and water for a short time.

  3. Take the onions out and dry them.

Pickle

  1. Place the dried onions in a jar and pour hot vinegar flavored with mace over them.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  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

Silver onions
Provide the main body and crisp-tender texture of the pickle.
Strong brine
Salt draws out moisture and seasons the onions before pickling.
Milk
Its proteins and fats mellow the sharp sulfur bite of the onions.
Hot vinegar
Acidity preserves the onions and gives the pickle its tangy flavor.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Simmering in milk and water. Simmering only a short time softens the onions gently while keeping them firm. Longer cooking breaks down their cell walls, leaving them soft and mushy in the jar.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, 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.

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