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Dessert

Walnuts, Pickled

Pickled walnuts preserved in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Walnuts, Pickled

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Wipe the walnuts with a dry cloth.

  2. Place them in wide-necked bottles or unglazed jars and cover with cold vinegar.

  3. Cover closely and let stand in a cool, dry place for 4 months.

  4. Drain off the vinegar.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil fresh vinegar with the seasonings until it covers the walnuts.

  2. Pour the boiling hot vinegar over the walnuts.

  3. Cover closely and store for 3 weeks in a cool, dry place.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Green walnuts
Provide the main pickled ingredient, softening and darkening as they steep in vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the preserving liquid, its acidity keeping the walnuts stable and sharply flavoured.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the pickling vinegar.
Cloves
Contribute strong aromatic spice notes to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Covering the walnuts with boiling vinegar. The walnuts must stay fully submerged in the hot vinegar, since any exposed pieces can spoil. Pouring boiling vinegar also helps extract the spice flavours and begins to sterilise the jars before sealing.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chickpeafits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, clove, 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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