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To Pickle Walnuts

A preserved walnut pickle made with spices, vinegar, horseradish, ginger, and garlic or shallots, cured for months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Scald the walnuts and rub off the first skin before they have a hard shell.

  2. Soak the walnuts in a strong cold brine, changing the brine on the third and sixth days.

  3. On the ninth day, remove the walnuts and dry them.

Spice and pickle

  1. Bruise together the long pepper, black pepper, ginger, allspice, cloves, mace, and mustard seed.

  2. In a jar, layer the walnuts and sprinkle with the spice mixture until all are covered.

  3. Boil the vinegar with sliced horseradish and ginger.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar over the walnuts.

  5. Repeat pouring hot vinegar over the walnuts for three to four days, keeping them covered.

  6. Add garlic or shallots during the last boiling.

  7. Let the pickles sit for five months before using.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Are the pickled main ingredient, becoming firm and dark as they cure in brine and vinegar.
Vinegar
Preserves the walnuts and provides the sharp acidity that defines the pickle.
Black pepper
Adds pungent heat and aroma to the spice blend.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the spiced vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling spices.

The step that matters

Soaking the walnuts in brine. The brine must be strong and changed on schedule so the walnuts are properly salted and drawn of bitterness before pickling. Weak or neglected brine can let the nuts spoil or turn bitter.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, pepper, ginger, allspice, clove, mustard, 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.

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