Why it works: Clove and ginger 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
Prepare the walnuts
Change the salt and water for the walnuts every three days.
Place the walnuts in a hair sieve and let them air dry until they turn black.
Put the walnuts in strong stone jars.
Pickle in vinegar
Pour boiling vinegar over them and cover the jars.
Let them cool.
Boil the vinegar three more times, pouring the boiled vinegar over the walnuts each time and letting it cool between each pour.
Seal the jars with paper and a bladder.
Let them stand for two months.
After two months, remove the walnuts from the vinegar.
Add the spiced vinegar
In a pot, combine 2 quarts of vinegar, ½ ounce of mace, ½ ounce of cloves, 1 ounce each of black pepper, Jamaica pepper, long pepper, and ginger, and 2 ounces of coarse sea salt.
Boil the mixture for ten minutes.
Pour the hot mixture over the walnuts.
Seal the jars again and cover them with paper and a bladder.
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.
-
Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,038 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
-
Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,592 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
- Are the main food being pickled, absorbing the vinegar and spices as they stand.
- Vinegar
- Acts as the preserving liquid, its acidity keeping the walnuts from spoiling during long standing.
- Black pepper
- Adds sharp, warm pungency that flavours the pickling liquid.
- Ginger
- Contributes warm, aromatic spice that flavours the pickle.
- Cloves
- Adds strong, sweet aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.
- Mace
- Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
The step that matters
Boiling the vinegar repeatedly and letting it cool between pours. Each pour of boiling vinegar must be allowed to cool before the next, so the jars do not crack and the walnuts are not cooked. Boiling again renews the acidity and preservation of the liquid.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper, ginger, walnut):
- Allspicefits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, pepper, ginger, walnut. 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
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.