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To Pickle Walnuts

A preserved walnut dish pickled in a seasoned vinegar brine.

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

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts while they are still soft enough to pierce with a pin.

  2. Make brine with 6 ounces of salt per quart of water and remove scum as it dissolves.

  3. Add walnuts to brine and stir them twice daily.

  4. Change the brine every three days; soak for 12 days for immediate eating or 9 days for longer storage.

  5. Drain walnuts and spread them on dishes to air dry until they turn black, about 12 hours.

Make the pickle

  1. Combine vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, black pepper, ginger, mace, cloves (stuck into onions), and mustard seed in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for about 5 minutes.

Pack and store

  1. Place walnuts in a stone jar and pour the hot pickle over them.

  2. Once the pickle cools, cover the jar securely and store in a dry place.

  3. Ensure walnuts are always covered with vinegar and boil any added vinegar.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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 that is cured in salt brine and then pickled, becoming dark and firm.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the walnuts and blackens them during the brining stage.
Vinegar
Acidic base of the pickle that preserves the walnuts and carries the spices.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the pickle liquid.

The step that matters

Keep walnuts fully covered with vinegar. Walnuts exposed to air can spoil and mould, because the acidic vinegar is what preserves them. Any added vinegar should be boiled first so the jar stays safely covered.

Swap the mace

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

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

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