Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in a brine of salt, water, spices, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the small white onions.

  2. Cover them with brine made from 14 cups of coarse sea salt and 2 quarts of boiling water.

  3. Let stand for 2 days.

  4. Drain the onions.

  5. Cover them with more brine.

  6. Let stand for another 2 days.

  7. Drain again.

Pickle and jar

  1. Make a new brine.

  2. Heat it to boiling.

  3. Add the onions.

  4. Boil for 3 minutes.

  5. Pack the onions into jars with peppercorns, cloves, bits of bay leaf, and slices of red pepper.

  6. Fill the jars to overflowing with scalded vinegar mixed with 1 cup of sugar for every gallon of vinegar.

  7. Cork the jars while hot.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 pickled vegetable itself, becoming tender and mild as they cure.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the onions during the brining, firming them and seasoning them.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Draining and re-brining over four days. Salt draws water out of the onions and seasons them slowly. Skipping the full soak or the second brine leaves the onions too wet and too harsh, and they will not pickle evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, sugar, vinegar. 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.

More pickled onions recipes

and Apples 3and Cucumbers 3 See all 163 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes