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Walnuts

A pickle of walnuts soaked in a brine and flavored with vinegar, pepper, mustard seed, ginger, and shallots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the walnuts

  1. Make a brine with salt and water strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Soak the walnuts in the brine for one week.

  3. Drain the walnuts on a sieve for 3-4 hours when the water turns black.

  4. Dry the walnuts on a cloth.

  5. Place the dried walnuts in an unglazed stone jar.

Make and pour the pickle

  1. Combine white wine vinegar with black pepper, mustard seed, ginger, and shallots in a pot.

  2. Boil gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the walnuts.

Seal the jar

  1. Once cooled, cover the jar tightly with a cork.

  2. Seal the jar with a wetted bladder and leather.

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. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ginger + shallottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the main substance of the pickle, softening and darkening during the brine soak.
Salt
Draws water out of the walnuts and seasons them during the brine soak.
White wine vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Shallots
Add sharp, savoury flavour to the pickling liquid.
Black pepper
Adds warm, pungent spice to the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Drain the walnuts when the brine turns black. Walnuts must be drained once the brine has darkened and before pickling, because leaving them soaking too long can make them soft and bitter. Draining at the right moment controls how much tannin and salt remain in the nuts before they are pickled.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, pepper, mustard, ginger, shallot. 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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