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To Pickle Walnuts Black

A method of pickling young walnuts in a spiced vinegar solution to produce black pickled walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

To Pickle Walnuts Black

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather young, soft walnuts on a sunny day.

  2. Rub the walnuts with a coarse cloth to remove the outer fur.

  3. Mix salt and water strong enough to float an egg.

  4. Soak the walnuts for a week, changing the brine every two days.

  5. Drain the walnuts.

  6. Spread the walnuts on large dishes for 10 minutes to air dry.

  7. Scald the walnuts in boiling water briefly.

  8. Rub the walnuts with a coarse cloth.

  9. Pierce each walnut several times with a large needle.

Pickle and seal

  1. Place the walnuts in stone jars.

  2. Boil vinegar with cloves, allspice, black pepper, mace, and nutmeg for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the vinegar.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar over the walnuts.

  5. Tie mustard seed and horseradish in a muslin rag.

  6. Add the rag to the jars.

  7. Seal the jars tightly with corks and leather.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Young walnuts are the base, softening in brine and darkening as they pickle.
Vinegar
Acidic liquid that preserves the walnuts and carries the spice flavours into them.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling vinegar.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent note to the pickling liquid.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows as the walnuts pickle.

The step that matters

Soaking the walnuts in brine. The brine must be strong enough to float an egg and changed every two days. Weak or stale brine lets the walnuts spoil, and the salt draws out bitterness and moisture while the walnuts darken.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, clove, allspice, pepper, nutmeg, 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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