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Walnut Pickles

Pickled walnuts in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Rub walnuts with a coarse towel and soak in a strong brine of salt and water for two weeks.

  2. Drain walnuts.

  3. Cover with fresh water and keep hot for twelve hours without boiling.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil for five minutes.

Pack and seal

  1. Pour the spiced vinegar over the walnuts in jars.

  2. Add mustard seed on top.

  3. Cover tightly.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Form the main body of the pickle and absorb the flavour of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid and provides the sharp, acidic bite.
Black pepper
Adds warm, sharp spice that carries through the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute strong aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the spiced vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter note and texture when layered on top.

The step that matters

Keep the walnuts hot without boiling. Holding the walnuts just below boiling for twelve hours softens them and lets them take up flavour without breaking apart. Boiling can toughen or split the nuts.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, clove, nutmeg, ginger, mustard):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, clove, nutmeg, ginger, mustard. 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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