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Pickled Butternuts and Walnuts

A preserved nut mixture pickled in vinegar with spices.

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. Scald the nuts and rub off the outer skin.

  2. Soak them in a strong brine for six days, changing the water every other day.

  3. Drain and wipe the nuts, piercing each one several times with a large needle.

Make the spice mix

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

  2. Add the mustard seed to the spice mixture.

Pack and pickle

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

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

  3. Seal the jars tightly with corks.

  4. Let the nuts 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 or walnuts
Form the pickled body; piercing and brining let the brine and spices penetrate the flesh.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the pickle.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that flavours the pickling liquid and nuts.
Ginger root
Contributes warm, aromatic pungency to the spice blend.
Cloves
Adds intense aromatic warmth from its volatile oils.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent flavour and a mild sharpness to the spice mix.

The step that matters

Piercing each nut before packing. Piercing with a needle lets the brine and vinegar penetrate the dense nut flesh. Without it, the pickling liquid may not season the nut evenly, and spoilage risk rises.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butternut, pepper, ginger, clove, nutmeg, mustard, cider. 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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