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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a vinegar brine with spices.

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 ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Dissolve 12 ounces of coarse sea salt in 2 quarts of water to make a brine.

  2. Change the brine twice over 9 to 12 days.

Make the pickling liquor

  1. Combine 1 gallon of vinegar, 1 teaspoon whole black pepper, 3 ounces ginger, 1 drachm mace, ½ ounce cloves, 4 to 6 small onions, and 4 ounces mustard seed in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the walnuts in a stone jar.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool completely before sealing the jar.

  3. Store the jar in a dry place, ensuring the walnuts remain covered with vinegar.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Their firm, bitter flesh softens and absorbs the spiced vinegar, becoming the pickle itself.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and bitterness from the walnuts during the brining stage.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour that mellows as the walnuts pickle.

The step that matters

Covering the walnuts with vinegar before sealing. Walnuts exposed above the liquid can spoil or mould, because only the acidic vinegar keeps them safe. Let the hot mixture cool fully first so the jar seals without trapping heat or pressure.

Swap the mace

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

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

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