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Pickled Onions

A method of preserving onions by soaking them in saltwater and then pickling them in a vinegar brine with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the onions

  1. Place unpeeled onions in a pan of strong saltwater for 24 hours.

  2. Peel the onions one at a time and place them in fresh saltwater, changing the water morning and night for 2 days.

  3. After 2 days, remove the onions from the brine and dry them with a cloth.

Make and add the pickle

  1. Prepare the pickle by combining black peppercorns, allspice, sliced ginger, and horseradish in a quart of distilled vinegar.

  2. Let the mixture steep in a covered stoneware jar by the fire for 3 days.

  3. Pack the dried onions into stoneware jars or bottles and pour the prepared pickle over them.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Ginger + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together676 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Salt brining draws water out and firms the flesh, so the onions stay crisp in the vinegar.
Distilled vinegar
Acid preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Black peppercorns
Release aromatic compounds into the vinegar, adding warm, pungent spice.
Allspice
Infuses warm, clove-like aroma into the pickling liquid.
Sliced ginger
Adds a bright, pungent aroma that flavours the steeped vinegar.
Horseradish
Its sharp volatile compounds add pungency to the pickle.

The step that matters

Drying the onions before packing. Any water left on the onions dilutes the vinegar and weakens the pickle, so they should be patted fully dry before going into the jars.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, ginger, horseradish. 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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