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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in spiced vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Rub the walnuts with a coarse towel and soak them in saltwater for two weeks, strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Drain the walnuts and place them in a kettle with enough fresh water to cover them.

  3. Let them sit for 12 hours in a hot place, but do not boil.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. In a separate pot, combine the vinegar, pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and broken ginger.

  2. Heat until just boiling, then boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, cover, and let cool.

Pickle and seal

  1. Place the walnuts in jars, sprinkle with the pounded mustard seed, and pour the spiced vinegar over them.

  2. Seal the jars tightly.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Are the main pickled food, softening and darkening in the brine and spiced vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour and a little body to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma and a gentle heat to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Let the walnuts soak in saltwater for two weeks. The brine must be strong enough to float an egg. Salt draws out moisture and bitterness from the walnut husks and hulls, and a weak brine lets the walnuts stay bitter or spoil before pickling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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