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French Walnut Pickles

Pickled walnuts prepared with vine leaves, water, white wine vinegar, and mutton fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,776 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

French Walnut Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Place vine leaves at the bottom of a pan and add the walnuts, covering them with more vine leaves.

  2. Set the pan over a very low heat until the skins can be peeled off.

  3. Carefully remove the walnuts using a hair sieve and peel them with a penknife.

Colour and cool

  1. Return the peeled walnuts to the pot with the vine leaves and water, cover, and cook over low heat until they turn a fine green.

  2. Drain the walnuts on a hair sieve and let them cool.

Pickle and store

  1. Once cooled, place the walnuts in boiled white wine vinegar.

  2. Pour a little mutton fat on top, seal with a bladder and paper, and store in a dry place.

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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Walnut + white winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Walnut + muttontop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Vinegar + muttontop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the main body of the pickle, taking on the vinegar and green colour.
White wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mutton fat
Forms a seal on top that limits contact with air and helps keep the walnuts from spoiling.
Vine leaves
Lie under and over the walnuts during cooking to shield them from direct heat while they turn green.

The step that matters

Cooking the walnuts over low heat until they turn green. Gentle, low heat softens the walnuts and lets their green colour develop without scorching or breaking them apart. Strong heat would toughen the skins and could leave the walnuts darkened or uneven.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, mutton):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Kidney beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, mutton. 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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