Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Walnuts

A method of preserving walnuts by soaking them in brine and then pickling them in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,053 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts in mid-July and soak them in saltwater for 2-3 days, changing the water daily.

  2. Make a cold brine strong enough to float an egg using salt and water; skim while boiling.

  3. Soak walnuts in brine for 6 days, then change the brine and soak for another 6 days.

  4. Drain walnuts and expose them to sunlight until they turn black.

Make the pickle and seal

  1. In a jar, combine white wine vinegar with pepper, pimento, ginger, mace, cloves, mustard seed, and horseradish; boil and cool.

  2. Pour the vinegar mixture over the walnuts, ensuring they are fully covered.

  3. Seal the jar tightly; they will be ready to eat in 6 months and can last for several years.

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 + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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
Main ingredient that softens during brining and takes on the pickled flavour and dark colour.
White-wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard-seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the pickling liquid.
Sea salt
Forms the brine that draws out moisture and seasons the walnuts before pickling.

The step that matters

Covering the walnuts fully with vinegar. Walnuts exposed above the liquid can spoil or mould, because air contact allows microbes to grow. Keeping every piece submerged, with the jar sealed tightly, helps the acidic liquid preserve them.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, wine, vinegar, mustard, pepper, garlic, ginger. 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

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes