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Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather walnuts when the sun is on them.

  2. Test the shell hardness by running a needle into them.

  3. Soak the walnuts in a strong saltwater solution for 9 days. Stir the walnuts twice daily and change the water every 3 days.

  4. Place the walnuts on a hair sieve and let them air dry until they turn black, about 12 hours.

  5. Pierce each nut several times with a needle.

Pickle and store

  1. Pack the pierced nuts into glass jars.

  2. Boil the vinegar with the spices for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar over the nuts, dividing the spices equally among the jars.

  4. Once cooled, seal the jars securely and store them in a dry place.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the main body of the pickle, absorbing the brine and vinegar flavour as they soften.
Strong salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts during soaking, helping them blacken and firm up.
Vinegar
Acidic base that preserves the nuts and carries the spice flavours into them.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic pungency to the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the sweetness of the nuts.

The step that matters

Soaking in strong saltwater. The salt solution must be strong enough and changed regularly. Weak or stale brine lets the walnuts spoil or ferment before they have dried and blackened, and salt draws out moisture so the shells and kernels firm up.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, ginger, pepper, clove, mustard, nutmeg. 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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