Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Preserved Walnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the walnuts
Pick full-grown green walnuts in May.
Pierce each nut several times with a thick needle.
Soak the nuts in cold water for 8 days, changing the water three times a day.
Boil the nuts in water with a pinch of salt until soft enough to pierce with a needle.
Soak the nuts in cold water for 2 days, changing the water three times a day.
Make the syrup and preserve
Boil the nuts in equal parts sugar for a few minutes, then let them cool.
Pour off the sugar the next day.
Boil it down and pour it over the nuts.
Repeat this for the third and fourth days.
On the fifth day, boil the walnuts again with the sugar for a few minutes, adding cloves and stick cinnamon.
Place the nuts in jars and pour the syrup over them until well covered.
Close the jars lightly.
If the syrup thins after a few days, pour it off, boil it again, and refill the jars tightly.
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.
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,147 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,147 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Full-grown green walnuts
- Provide the main body of the preserve, softening during long soaking and boiling.
- Sugar
- Preserves the nuts and forms the thick syrup that coats them, adding sweetness.
- Cloves
- Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup.
- Stick cinnamon
- Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the syrup.
The step that matters
Soaking and changing the water. Walnuts contain bitter, astringent compounds that leach out slowly into water. Changing the water regularly keeps the concentration low so the bitterness is removed rather than redistributed through the nut.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, cinnamon):
- Almondfits better
- Chickpeafits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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