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Onions Spiced

A pickled onion dish flavored with vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Onions Spiced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer sliced onions in a jar, sprinkling with salt.

  2. In a pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, and peppercorns.

Pickle

  1. Scald the mixture, then pour it hot over the onions.

  2. After 24 hours, pour off the liquid, scald it again, and pour it back over the onions.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main vegetable that softens and becomes tender and mildly sweet as it pickles.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the onions, helping them stay crisp and season them evenly.

The step that matters

Pouring the second scalding liquid back over the onions. Pouring off and reheating the brine after 24 hours keeps the onions from over-softening and ensures the liquid is hot enough to start pickling; the brine should be fully scalded again before returning it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove. 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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