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To Pickle Walnuts

A pickled walnut recipe using vinegar, spices, and garlic or shallots, left to mature for five 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 walnuts and rub off the first skin before they develop a hard shell.

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

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

Spice and pickle

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

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

  3. Boil vinegar with sliced horseradish and ginger, then pour hot over the walnuts.

  4. Repeat pouring hot vinegar for three to four days, keeping the pickles covered.

  5. Add garlic or shallots during the last boiling.

  6. Let 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
Main ingredient that is softened by brine and takes on the pickling flavours.
Vinegar
Acidic liquid that preserves the walnuts and carries the spice flavour into them.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that flavours the pickling liquid and the walnuts.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent note to the spice blend.

The step that matters

Changing the brine and drying the walnuts. Fresh brine on set days draws out moisture and keeps the walnuts from turning sour or spoiling before pickling. Drying them well before the jar keeps the vinegar from being diluted by surface water.

Swap the mace

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

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

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