Skip to main content
Side

Pickled Onions

Pickled onions preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Remove the outer skins from the onions until they are perfectly white and clean.

  2. Soak the onions in brine for three days, then drain.

Pack the jar

  1. In a jar, layer the onions three inches deep, sprinkling with horse-radish, cinnamon bark, cloves, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Repeat the layering until the jar is filled, using ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoons chopped horse-radish, 2 teaspoons cloves, and ¼ cup cinnamon bark for each gallon of pickles.

Add the vinegar

  1. Bring the vinegar to a boil, then add 1 quart of brown sugar for each gallon of vinegar.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the onions.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Radish + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Radish + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together196 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

Onions
Form the main body of the pickle, staying firm and crisp as they absorb the flavours.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its tang.
Brown sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness and adds depth to the syrup.
Horse-radish
Contributes pungent, sharp heat that infuses into the onions as they pickle.

The step that matters

Soak the onions in brine for three days. The brine draws water out of the onions and seasons them, so they stay firm and crisp rather than soft. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the onions wetter and less seasoned, which dilutes the vinegar and weakens the final pickle.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, horse, radish, cinnamon, clove, pepper, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, horse, radish, cinnamon, clove, pepper, sugar. 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.

More pickled onions recipes

and Apples 3and Cucumbers 3 See all 163 →

You might also like

Onion PuddingOnion Pudding9 recipesEggplant CakesEggplant Cakes34 recipesEscalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)Escalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)25 recipesParsnip CroquettesParsnip Croquettes12 recipes