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Preserve

Onion Pickle

Onions pickled in salt, milk, water, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Onion Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Soak the onions in boiling water with salt for 24 hours.

  2. Boil the onions slowly in a mixture of sweet milk and water until they are coddled.

  3. Soak the onions in weak vinegar for one to two days.

Pickle and finish

  1. Scald good cider vinegar with various spices (excluding allspice) and pour it over the onions.

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. Vinegar + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cider + allspicetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together873 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  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 white onions
Form the bulk of the pickle and provide the main texture once softened.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the onions and seasons them during the initial soak.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Sweet milk
Mellows the onions gently while they are coddled in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Coddling the onions slowly. Simmering gently, rather than boiling hard, softens the onions evenly without breaking them apart. Overheating can make them mushy and uneven in texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, vinegar, cider, allspice. 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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