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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions are small onions preserved in a vinegar solution with salt, cloves, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select small onions of equal size and ensure they are sound.

  2. Peel and scald the onions in salt water until tender.

  3. Drain the onions and place them in glass jars.

Pickle

  1. Heat vinegar to boiling point and mix in whole cloves and mace.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the onions, distributing the spices among the jars.

  3. Seal the jars air-tight after pouring the vinegar 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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Small onions
Form the bulk of the pickle; scalding softens them so they absorb the vinegar.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the onions and gives them a sharp, tangy flavour.
Whole cloves
Infuse the hot vinegar with a warm, pungent spice aroma.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Scald the onions until just tender. Heat softens the onions' cell structure so they take up the salt and vinegar evenly. Scalding too little leaves them hard and resistant, while overcooking makes them soft and mushy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, 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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