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To Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts in a vinegar and spice solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Harvest walnuts before the shell forms; test by inserting a needle.

  2. Soak walnuts in a strong saltwater solution for 9 days, stirring daily and changing the water every 3 days.

  3. Drain walnuts in a hair sieve and wipe them dry.

Pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with sliced ginger, long peppers, and cloves.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the walnuts in jars.

  3. Repeat boiling the vinegar and pouring it over the walnuts for 3 to 4 days.

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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Walnut + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 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
The main ingredient; soaking in brine softens and blackens the nuts as they pickle.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Strong salt
Draws out moisture and bitterness from the walnuts during the long brine soak.

The step that matters

Soaking the walnuts in strong brine. Salt draws water out of the walnuts and slows spoilage, so the brine must be strong enough and changed regularly, or the nuts can ferment or go bitter.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, ginger, pepper, 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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