Name: To Pickle Young Onions
Ingredients: small silver onions; 1 quart vinegar; ½ ounce white pepper; ¼ ounce allspice; ¼ ounce garlic; 1 sliced nutmeg

Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Young Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

Put the small silver onions in cold water.
When the water is scalding hot, remove the onions with an egg slice.
Peel the skins off until the onions look white and clear.
Lay the peeled onions into the folds of a cloth.

Pickle

Boil the vinegar with white pepper, allspice, garlic, and nutmeg.
Put the onions into a jar and pour the boiling vinegar and spices over them.
When cold, cover the jar with 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.

Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,115 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Allspice + garlictop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,379 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 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

Small silver onions: The main vegetable, which becomes crisp-tender and mild as it pickles in the vinegar.
Vinegar: Its acidity preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
White pepper: Adds a gentle, sharp heat that flavours the pickling liquid.
Allspice: Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling vinegar.
Garlic: Adds a savoury aroma that infuses into the vinegar and onions.
Nutmeg: Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Scalding and peeling the onions. Dipping the onions in scalding water loosens their skins so they peel cleanly. Leaving them in too long can soften the onions, while too short a time leaves the skins stuck, so watch the timing closely.

Swap the white pepper

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

Clovefits better
Thymefits better
Cinnamonfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, allspice, garlic, nutmeg. 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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To Pickle Young Onions