Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Pickled Walnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the walnuts
Gather walnuts when soft enough to pierce with a needle in July.
Prick each walnut with a large needle while holding it in a cloth to avoid staining your hands.
Cover the walnuts with strong salt water (1½ cups salt to 1 gallon water) and let them stand for two years.
After two years, pour a brine made by dissolving salt in boiling water over the walnuts. Let the brine cool.
Let the walnuts sit in the brine for three days.
Renew the brine and let the walnuts sit for another three days.
Drain the walnuts.
Expose the walnuts to the sun for two to three days until they turn black.
Soak the walnuts in cold water for half a day.
Pickle and pack
Pack the walnuts in jars, not quite full.
Boil the vinegar for eight minutes with 1 cup sugar, 3 dozen whole cloves, 3 dozen allspice, 1½ dozen peppercorns, and 12 blades of mace.
Pour the hot vinegar over the walnuts. Wait three days.
Draw off the vinegar. Boil the vinegar. Pour the hot vinegar over the walnuts again. Wait another three days.
Draw off the vinegar. Boil the vinegar. Pour the hot vinegar over the walnuts again.
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.
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + macetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
-
Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together553 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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
- Main ingredient that softens and blackens during salting, sunning and pickling into a dark, firm pickle.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the walnuts and seasons them during the long brining.
- Vinegar
- Acid that preserves the walnuts and carries the spices into them.
- Sugar
- Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
The step that matters
Piercing the walnuts while they are soft. Walnuts must be picked and pierced while the shell is still soft enough to take a needle, so brine and vinegar can penetrate the nut. Pierced at the wrong stage, the walnuts stay hard inside and the pickle does not flavour or darken evenly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, vinegar, sugar, clove, allspice. 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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