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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a brine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Dissolve coarse sea salt in boiling water until it can float an egg.

  2. Let the brine cool.

  3. Place a board on the walnuts to keep them submerged in the brine for nine days, making fresh brine every third day.

Darken and pickle

  1. Drain the walnuts and turn them in the sun until they turn black.

  2. Put the walnuts in a jar and cover them with hot vinegar.

  3. Boil two ounces of whole pepper, one ounce of whole ginger, three or four cloves, and a blade of mace in each quart of vinegar before pouring it over the walnuts.

  4. Seal the jars tightly and store them in a dry place.

Rest and use

  1. Wait at least one month, best six months.

  2. Drain the vinegar to use as ketchup and refill with fresh vinegar as needed.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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 ingredient, softening and darkening through the brine and sun steps.
Coarse sea salt
Makes the brine that draws out moisture and keeps the walnuts submerged and preserved.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the walnuts and carries the flavour of the spices.
Whole pepper
Adds a warm, sharp spice aroma to the pickling vinegar.
Whole ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Keeping the walnuts submerged in brine. Walnuts that float above the brine can spoil or discolour unevenly. A weighted board and fresh brine every third day keep the salt concentration strong enough to preserve them for the full nine days.

Swap the mace

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

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

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