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Pickled Walnuts

Walnuts preserved by soaking in brine and steeping in a spiced vinegar mixture.

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

Make the brine

  1. Prepare a brine with 12 ounces of coarse sea salt dissolved in 2 quarts of water.

  2. Soak the walnuts in this brine for 9 to 12 days, changing the brine twice or more.

Make the pickling vinegar

  1. In a pot, combine 2 gallons of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of whole black pepper, 3 ounces of ginger, 1/8 ounce of mace, 1/2 ounce of cloves, 4 to 6 small onions, and 4 ounces of mustard seed.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil for 5 minutes.

Pickle and store

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

  2. Allow it to cool completely.

  3. Once cooled, cover the jar securely.

  4. Store it in a dry place.

  5. Ensure the walnuts are always 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
Are the pickled food; they soften and absorb the brine and vinegar flavours over days.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and seasons them during the brine soak.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the walnuts fully covered with vinegar. Walnuts exposed to air can darken, spoil or mould, because the acidic liquid is what preserves them. Any part left above the liquid is unprotected.

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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