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Another Way to Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts with mustard seed, mace, peppercorns, bay leaves, onion, and cloves in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Way to Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather the walnuts before the inside shell hardens by testing with a pin.

  2. Soak the nuts in a mixture of salt and water for nine days, changing the liquid every three days.

  3. Remove the nuts and air dry them on a sieve or mat, turning them to ensure even drying.

Pack the jar

  1. In a jar, layer half the nuts.

  2. Add the onion with the cloves stuck into it.

  3. Top with the remaining nuts.

  4. Boil the mustard seed, mace, black peppercorns, and bay leaves in vinegar.

  5. Pour the boiling mixture over the nuts, ensuring they are fully covered.

  6. Cover the jar with a cloth.

  7. Seal it with bladder or leather once cool.

Rest and check

  1. After six weeks, check the nuts.

  2. If they are dry, add more vinegar without boiling.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 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
Main ingredient that softens during salt soaking and takes on the pickling flavour as it rests.
Vinegar
Acidic liquid that preserves the nuts and carries the spice flavours into them.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.
Black peppercorns
Contribute warm, sharp heat to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling mixture over the nuts. The nuts must be fully covered by the hot vinegar mixture. Keeping them submerged limits exposure to air, which helps prevent spoilage and mould during the long rest.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, mustard, vinegar, onion, 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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