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To Pickle Walnuts

A method for pickling walnuts in a brine and vinegar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Gather walnuts while they are still soft enough to pierce with a pin.

  2. Make brine with 6 ounces of salt dissolved in 1½ gallons of water. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Add walnuts to the brine. Stir the walnuts morning and night.

  4. Change the brine every three days.

  5. Leave walnuts in brine for 12 days for immediate eating, or drain walnuts after 9 days for later use.

  6. Spread drained walnuts on dishes. Expose them to air until they turn black, about 12 hours.

Make the pickle

  1. Combine ½ gallon vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 ounces black pepper, 3 ounces ginger, 1 drachm mace, ¼ to ½ ounce cloves, and 4 ounces mustard‑seed in a pot. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

Pickle and store

  1. Place walnuts in a stone jar. Pour the hot pickle over the walnuts. Cover the jar securely.

  2. Store in a dry place. Ensure walnuts are always covered with vinegar. Boil any additional vinegar added.

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
Their soft, unripe flesh softens in brine and turns dark when exposed to air.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and preserves them in the brine.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Black pepper
Adds warm, pungent spice that flavours the pickling liquid.
Mustard-seed
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Exposing the drained walnuts to air until they turn black. Walnut flesh darkens through oxidation when exposed to air, so the walnuts must be left long enough to change colour before pickling, and kept covered in vinegar afterwards so they do not spoil.

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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