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To Pickle Walnuts

A preserved walnut dish preserved in a seasoned brine and vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,053 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the walnuts

  1. Boil water with salt until strong enough to float an egg, then let the water cool and skim off any foam.

  2. Soak walnuts in the brine for six days, then change the brine and soak for another six days.

  3. Drain the walnuts and place them in a jar.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil vinegar with pepper, pimento, ginger, mace, cloves, mustard seed, and horseradish until combined, then let it cool.

  2. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture over the walnuts, ensuring they are fully covered.

  3. Seal the jar tightly and store. They will be ready to eat in six months.

Make the ketchup

  1. For ketchup, boil the pickle with anchovies and cayenne before using.

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. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 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
Form the pickle's base, softening and absorbing the brined and spiced vinegar flavour over time.
Coarse sea salt
Makes the brine that draws out moisture and firms the walnuts during the long soak.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and carries the spices.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth to the ketchup made from the pickle.

The step that matters

Brining the walnuts. The salt concentration must be strong enough to float an egg. A weak brine lets the walnuts spoil or ferment, while a properly strong brine preserves them through the long soak.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, white wine, vinegar, mustard, garlic, pepper, 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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