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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions are small onions preserved in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Select small onions of equal size.

  2. Peel the onions with a silver knife.

  3. Scald the onions in salted water until tender.

  4. Drain and pack the onions in sterilized glass jars.

Pickle and seal

  1. Heat enough vinegar to cover the onions until it reaches boiling point.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon each of whole cloves and mace to the vinegar.

  3. Pour the vinegar over the onions, distributing the spices among them.

  4. Add a tiny red pepper and a little white mustard seed to each jar.

  5. Seal the jars immediately.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 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 after scalding and absorbing the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the vinegar.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma that infuses into the vinegar.
White mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Scald the onions until tender, then seal immediately. Scalding softens the onions so they absorb the vinegar, and the jars must be sealed while hot so the contents stay sterile and the vinegar keeps them from spoiling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, clove, pepper, 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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