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Dessert

Pickled Butternuts and Walnuts

Pickled butternuts and walnuts preserved in seasoned vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Butternuts and Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the nuts

  1. Soak the nuts in a strong brine for six days, changing the water every other day and keeping them covered.

  2. Drain and wipe the nuts, then pierce each nut in several places with a large needle.

Season and pack

  1. Pound the black pepper, ginger root, cloves, mace, and nutmeg to a powder and mix well with the mustard seed.

  2. Layer the nuts in jars, sprinkling the powdered seasoning between each layer.

Pickle and rest

  1. Boil the cider vinegar for five minutes and pour it hot over the nuts.

  2. Seal the jars tightly with corks and let them sit for two weeks before eating.

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. Butternut + nutmegtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butternut + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butternuts and walnuts
Form the main body of the pickle, absorbing the brine and vinegar and softening over the long rest.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the nuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that flavors the nuts as the spices steep.
Ginger root
Contributes warm, aromatic bite that carries through the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Add strong, warm aroma that infuses the nuts during the long rest.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter note that rounds out the spice blend.

The step that matters

Pierce each nut in several places. Piercing lets the brine, spices and vinegar penetrate the dense nut meat. Without it the seasoning stays on the surface and the centre may not flavor or soften evenly.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butternut, walnut, pepper, ginger, clove, nutmeg, 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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