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Pickled Walnuts

A preservation method where green walnuts are pickled in a brine and vinegar mixture with cloves, horseradish, and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Pick the walnuts when they are green and soft; prick them well with a fork.

  2. Boil 4 pounds of salt in 1 gallon of water; strain it clear.

  3. Place the walnuts in a stone jar and pour the boiling brine over them.

  4. Let the walnuts stand in the sun for 2-3 days, then drain them into a basket.

  5. Put the walnuts back into the jar.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil enough cider vinegar to cover the walnuts; add cloves, horseradish, and mustard seed.

  2. Pour the boiling vinegar over the walnuts and cover tightly.

  3. In 2 weeks, the pickled walnuts will be ready to use.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Green walnuts
Provide the pickled flesh; their soft, unripe state lets them absorb brine and vinegar.
Sea salt
Draws water out of the walnuts and seasons them during the brining stage.
Cider vinegar
Acidifies the walnuts, preserving them and giving the pickle its sharp flavour.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat that mellows as the walnuts pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, savoury flavour to the vinegar as it infuses.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling brine and vinegar. The walnuts must be fully submerged and the liquids kept boiling hot so the salt and acid penetrate evenly and the pickle keeps well. Cold or partial coverage can let spoilage start.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, clove, horseradish, 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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