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To Pickle Walnuts

A preserved walnut dish made by soaking in a seasoned brine and vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the walnuts

  1. When walnuts can be pierced with a pin, prepare a brine of salt and water.

  2. Boil the brine until it is strong enough to float an egg, then skim the brine while boiling.

  3. Let the brine cool.

  4. Soak the walnuts in the brine for six days.

  5. Change the brine.

  6. Let the walnuts stand in the new brine for another six days.

  7. Drain the walnuts.

Pickle and store

  1. Place the walnuts in a jar.

  2. Boil the mixture of white-wine vinegar, pepper, pimento, ginger, mace, cloves, mustard-seed, and horseradish together.

  3. Cool the boiled mixture.

  4. Pour the cooled mixture over the walnuts in the jar.

  5. Add six tablespoons of mustard-seed and two or three heads of garlic or shallot for every hundred walnuts.

  6. Seal the jar tightly.

  7. Store the jar; the walnuts will be good for several years but not ready to eat for at least six months.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Form the pickled base, absorbing the brine and spiced vinegar flavour as they soften.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and seasons them during the brining stage.
White-wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard-seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the pickling liquid and the jar.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during long storage.

The step that matters

Seal the jar tightly and wait. Vinegar and salt preserve the walnuts only when air is kept out; a loose seal lets spoilage start. The flavour also needs months to mellow, so eating early gives harsh, unbalanced taste.

Swap the mace

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

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

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