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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in brine and seasoned with shallots and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard 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 ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Prick each walnut with a fork. If the fork does not go through, the walnuts are too old to pickle.

  2. Soak the walnuts in brine for nine days, changing the brine every third day.

  3. After nine days, place the walnuts in a saucepan with the last brine and simmer gently.

  4. Pour off the brine and drain the walnuts in a colander.

  5. Spread the walnuts on a flat surface and let them air dry for one to two days until they turn black.

Pickle and jar

  1. Prepare a pickle similar to cucumber pickle, adding shallots and mustard seed.

  2. Pack the walnuts into jars or bottles, filling them three-quarters full, and cover with the pickle.

  3. Seal the jars with corks and bladder or 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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Walnut + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh walnuts
Provide the main body of the pickle; freshness matters because older walnuts are too tough to pickle.
Brine
Draws out bitterness and moisture and firms the walnuts, while the air-drying step lets them darken.
Shallots
Add a sharp, savoury onion flavour to the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter aroma and sharp flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Test the walnuts with a fork before pickling. Walnuts that are too old have a hard shell and dense interior that the fork cannot pierce, and the brine cannot penetrate them properly. Choosing fresh walnuts at the start ensures the brine softens and flavours them evenly, so the pickle keeps well and eats tender.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, shallot, 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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