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To Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts in spiced vinegar and saltwater.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger 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

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts before the shell hardens; test with a pin.

  2. Soak walnuts in strong saltwater for 9 days, stirring twice daily and changing the saltwater every 3 days.

  3. Place walnuts in a sieve to air dry until they turn black.

Pickle

  1. Transfer walnuts to stone jars and pour boiling vinegar over them; cover and let cool.

  2. Boil the vinegar three more times, allowing it to cool between each boiling.

  3. Prepare fresh vinegar to cover the walnuts, boiling it with pepper, cloves, ginger, mustard seeds, and garlic.

  4. Pour the spiced vinegar over the walnuts and let cool.

  5. Seal the jars with a bladder and let them sit for 2 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. Clove + gingertop 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. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Main ingredient; soaking and air drying turn the green nuts dark and firm them for pickling.
Strong salt
Draws water out of the walnuts during the long soak, helping them darken and firm up.
Boiling vinegar
Acid that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard seeds
Add pungent, sharp flavour to the spiced vinegar that soaks into the walnuts.

The step that matters

Air drying until the walnuts turn black. Drying after the salt soak lets the walnuts darken and concentrate their flavour. Stopping too early leaves them pale and wet, which can dilute the vinegar and affect how well they keep.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, clove, ginger, mustard, garlic. 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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