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Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in a vinegar and sugar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 onions, then soak them in cold water and wash them.

  2. Place the onions in a kettle with 2 quarts of water and the salt.

  3. Scald the onions for about 10 minutes until they are slightly tender, but not soft.

  4. Drain the onions in a sieve.

Pickle and seal

  1. Place the onions in glass jars with the pepper pods or small pieces of red bell pepper.

  2. In a pot, boil the vinegar, sugar, mace, and cloves for a few minutes.

  3. While hot, pour the mixture over the onions until they are fully covered.

  4. Seal the jars.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acid that preserves the onions and gives them their tang.
Small white french onions
Form the main body of the pickle and soften slightly when scalded.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the onions during the initial scald.

The step that matters

Scalding the onions. Scalding for about 10 minutes only softens them slightly; overcooking makes them mushy, while too little leaves them raw and sharp. Draining well before jarring also keeps excess water from diluting the pickling liquid.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, white wine, vinegar, pepper, 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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