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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in vinegar, lemon, garlic, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the small onions and place them in jars.

  2. Pour pale vinegar over the onions until covered.

  3. Add any favorite spices if desired.

Prepare the lemons

  1. Wipe the lemons clean and make four deep incisions in each without cutting through.

  2. Stuff the lemons with coarse sea salt and place them in a deep dish in a warm spot for 7-10 days, turning them often.

  3. Rub the lemons with turmeric if using, then place them in a stone jar with garlic and the clove-stuffed onions.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil the vinegar with ginger, black pepper, and mustard seed, then pour it over the lemons.

  2. Cover the jar with a plate and let it sit overnight.

  3. The next day, add the red peppers and seal the jar with thick paper.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their salt-cured peel and juice add sourness and aroma to the pickling liquid.
White wine vinegar
Its acidity preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
Small onions
They are the main vegetable, softening slightly while absorbing the vinegar and spices.
Mustard seed
It adds a pungent, sharp flavor to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
It contributes a warm, aromatic bite to the vinegar brine.

The step that matters

Salting and curing the lemons. The lemons must be fully packed with coarse salt and kept warm for 7-10 days, turning often, so the salt draws out juice and softens the peel. Under-salting or skipping turns leaves them firm and bitter in the final pickle.

Swap the turmeric

The recipe marks turmeric as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, lemon, garlic, clove, white wine, ginger):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Turmericthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, lemon, garlic, clove, white wine, ginger. 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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