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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in vinegar, sugar, cloves, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Brine and pickle

  1. Soak little onions in weak brine for 24 hours, then drain.

  2. Pour scalding vinegar over the onions to cover them and let sit for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the vinegar and scald the onions again.

Season

  1. Season with a little sugar, a few whole cloves, and black pepper.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 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

Little onions
The vegetable being pickled; the brine seasons it and changes its texture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that pickles the onions and gives them their sharp tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whole cloves
Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the pickled onions.

The step that matters

Pouring scalding vinegar over the onions. The vinegar must be hot enough to penetrate the onions and begin softening them. Cooler vinegar pickles more slowly and less evenly, so the onions can stay firm and under-flavoured.

Swap the onion

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

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

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