Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Onions

Pickled onions soaked in saltwater, boiled in milk, then preserved in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 and soak them in a strong saltwater solution for three days.

  2. Remove the onions and soak them in fresh water for one day.

  3. Boil the onions in milk until they come to a boil, then drain until dry.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place the onions in jars with red pepper pods.

  2. Boil vinegar with spices, sugar, mace, whole peppercorns, and cloves.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar over the onions and seal the jars tightly.

  4. Optionally, reheat the vinegar and pour it over the onions again to fill the jars.

  5. Let the pickled onions sit for one month 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. 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. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Small onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and mild as they cure.
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.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and sharpness from the onions during the initial saltwater soak.

The step that matters

Sealing the hot vinegar over the onions. Pouring hot vinegar into packed jars and sealing them tightly helps the pickle stay preserved. Gaps or cool liquid can let spoilage start, so the jars should be filled well and sealed while the vinegar is still hot.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

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