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To Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts in a brine and vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts while they can be easily pierced with a pin.

  2. Make brine with 6 ounces of salt in 1 quart of water.

  3. Remove scum as salt dissolves, then add walnuts and stir twice daily.

  4. Change brine every 3 days.

  5. Leave walnuts in brine for 12 days for immediate eating, or drain after 9 days otherwise.

Blacken and pickle

  1. Spread drained walnuts on dishes and expose to air until they turn black, about 12 hours.

  2. Prepare pickle with ½ gallon vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 ounces black pepper, 3 ounces bruised ginger, 1 drachm mace, ¼ to ½ ounce cloves (some stuck in small onions), and 4 ounces mustard seed.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Main ingredient that darkens to black when exposed to air after brining.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the walnuts and seasons them during the brine.
Vinegar
Acidic base of the pickle that preserves the walnuts and gives them their sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the pickle liquor.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, warm spice to the pickle liquor.

The step that matters

Changing the brine every 3 days. Salt draws out water and the walnuts release tannins and bitter compounds into the brine. Fresh brine keeps the salt concentration steady and prevents spoilage, so the walnuts cure evenly.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, pepper, ginger, clove, 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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