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 ↓
Pickled Onions
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the onions
Peel the small white onions.
Boil salt and water in a pan.
Add a few onions at a time to the boiling water until they look clear.
Carefully remove the onions and place them on a sieve to dry.
Repeat until all onions are cooked.
Once cold, place the onions in jars.
Make the spiced vinegar and pickle
In a pot, combine spiced vinegar with allspice, pepper grains, mace, cloves, and mustard seed.
Boil the mixture and pour it hot over the pickled onions in the jars.
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.
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,928 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
-
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,259 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Small white onions
- Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and mild as they are cooked and pickled.
- Spiced vinegar
- Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
- Mustard seed
- Contributes pungent, slightly bitter aroma to the spiced vinegar.
The step that matters
Cooling the onions before jarring. The record says to place the onions in jars once cold. Putting them in while warm could soften them further and affect how well they hold their texture in the hot vinegar.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, allspice, pepper, clove, mustard):
- Thymefits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, allspice, pepper, clove, 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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