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To Pickle Onions

A method for pickling small onions with salt, water, vinegar, ginger, and mustard seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the onions

  1. Peel the small pickling onions.

  2. Place the peeled onions in a mixture of salt and water.

  3. Let them sit for four days.

  4. Change the pickle once or twice.

  5. Transfer the onions to a jar.

  6. Pour boiling water and coarse sea salt over the onions in the jar.

  7. Cover the jar tightly.

  8. Let the jar cool completely.

  9. Once cool, pour off the pickle.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the onions into wide-mouthed bottles.

  2. Boil some strong vinegar with sliced ginger and mustard seeds.

  3. While the vinegar is hot, fill the bottles with it.

  4. Cork and seal the bottles.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + mustardtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,456 recipes

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

  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 pickling onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and mild as they cure.
Strong vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its tang.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the onions during the initial brining.
Mustard seeds
Add a pungent, slightly bitter aroma that infuses into the hot vinegar.
Sliced ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that flavours the vinegar.

The step that matters

Let the jar cool completely before pouring off the pickle. Pouring hot brine or handling the jar while hot risks cracking and uneven curing; cooling fully lets the onions set and keeps the texture firm before the vinegar is added.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, 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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