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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a brine and vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Brine the walnuts

  1. Dissolve coarse sea salt in boiling water until it can float an egg, making a strong brine.

  2. Let the brine cool before adding the walnuts.

  3. Place a board on the walnuts to keep them submerged in the brine for nine days, making fresh brine every third day.

  4. Drain the walnuts.

  5. Turn the walnuts in the sun until they turn black.

Pickle

  1. Put the walnuts in a jar and cover them with hot vinegar.

  2. Boil the spices in the vinegar.

  3. Pour the boiled spice vinegar over the walnuts.

  4. Seal the jars securely and store them in a dry place.

Rest and use

  1. Use the walnuts after one month, but wait six months for better flavor.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  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

Walnuts
The main ingredient, which is transformed by brining, sun-drying and pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and helps preserve them in the brine.
Hot vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives them a sharp, tangy flavor.
Whole ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pickling vinegar.
Cloves
Adds strong aromatic flavor to the spiced pickling vinegar.

The step that matters

Keep the walnuts fully submerged in strong brine. Salt concentration and full submersion keep air away from the walnuts and inhibit spoilage microbes. Weak brine or walnuts poking above the liquid can let the batch spoil during the nine days.

Swap the mace

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

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

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