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Pickled Onions

Onions pickled in a vinegar and spice mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Soak the onions in salt water for three days, making the water strong enough to float an egg.

  3. Remove the onions and soak them in fresh water for one day.

  4. Boil the onions in milk.

  5. Drain the onions until dry.

Pickle and rest

  1. Place the onions in jars with red pepper pods.

  2. Boil the vinegar with allspice, cloves, and mace together.

  3. Once the mixture is lukewarm, pour it over the onions.

  4. Let the onions sit for a few days before using.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Small onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and mild as they cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the onions and seasons them during the initial brine soak.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Allspice, cloves, and mace
Add warm aromatic spice flavor to the pickling liquid.
Milk
Mellows the sharpness of the onions during the milk boil.

The step that matters

Soaking in salt water. The brine must be strong enough to float an egg; if it is weaker, the onions may spoil or ferment during the long soak instead of curing cleanly. Salt draws out moisture and inhibits spoilage microbes, so the concentration matters.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, vinegar, allspice, clove, mace. 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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