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Dessert

To Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts in a spiced brine and vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Prepare a brine with enough salt in water to float an egg.

  2. Boil and skim the brine well.

Cure the walnuts

  1. Pour the brine over the walnuts and let them stand for 12 to 14 days, changing the brine after 6 days.

  2. After 12 days, drain the walnuts and dry them with a coarse cloth.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil the white wine vinegar with mace, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, bruised ginger, and Jamaica peppercorns.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the walnuts.

  3. Once cooled, place them in a jar and seal tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts (in the method)
Main ingredient that softens and darkens during the salt cure and absorbs the spiced vinegar.
Salt
Draws water out of the walnuts during the brine cure and helps preserve them.
White wine vinegar
Acid that preserves the walnuts and carries the spice flavours into them.

The step that matters

Draining and drying the walnuts after the cure. Walnuts left wet after the brine can dilute the hot vinegar and weaken preservation. Thorough drying helps the pickle keep and stay sharp in flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, nutmeg, ginger):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, clove, allspice, nutmeg, 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.

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