Name: To Pickle Walnuts
Ingredients: walnuts; salt; water; vinegar; cloves; peppercorns

Why it works: Walnut and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,592 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Blanch the walnuts.
Soak the walnuts in salt and water for 2 days.
Boil enough vinegar to cover the walnuts, adding a few cloves and some peppercorns.
Add the walnuts to the boiling vinegar.
Boil the walnuts 4 times, with intervals of 10 days between each boiling.
Prick the walnuts with a fork before placing them in a jar.

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.

Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,769 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).