Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Onions, Pickled

A pickled onion recipe using vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Onions, Pickled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the onions and slice them thinly.

  2. Place the sliced onions in a large jar, sprinkling each layer liberally with coarse sea salt and lightly with cayenne pepper.

Pickle

  1. Cover the onions with vinegar, ensuring to exclude air by using a bladder or paper brushed with egg white.

  2. Store the jar in a cool, dry place.

  3. The pickles will be ready to use in 10 to 14 days.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the bulk of the pickle and soften in texture as they cure.
Vinegar
Acidifies the onions, preserving them and giving the pickle its sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the onions and helps preserve them during curing.

The step that matters

Excluding air over the onions. Onions left exposed to air at the surface can spoil or mould. A bladder or egg-white-brushed paper held on top keeps the surface sealed under the vinegar, so the whole batch stays submerged and protected while it pickles.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes