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Pickled Butternuts

Pickled butternuts are butternuts preserved in a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 Butternuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Gather butternuts in the last week of June.

  2. Scald and rub off the outside skin.

  3. Soak the butternuts in a strong salt and water brine for nine days, keeping them covered from the air.

Pickle and seal

  1. Drain the butternuts and prepare the pickle by combining vinegar, black pepper, ginger root, ground cloves, allspice, mustard seed, and horseradish.

  2. Put the nuts into jars.

  3. Heat the vinegar to boiling point and pour it hot over the nuts.

  4. 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Butternut + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butternuts
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and taking on the vinegar flavour.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the squash and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, warm flavour to the pickling liquid.
Ginger root
Contributes a sharp, aromatic warmth to the pickle.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar boiling hot over the nuts. Hot vinegar helps drive out air and seal the squash for preserving, and the nuts need to be fully covered so the acid reaches all surfaces and keeps the pickle safe.

Swap the butternut

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

  1. Chickpeafits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Butternutthe original
  4. Lentilsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, pepper, ginger, clove, allspice, 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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