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Dessert

Pickled Walnuts

Pickled walnuts preserved in a brine of salt and water, then sun-dried and sealed with a hot vinegar and spice mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Prick the walnuts with a fork and prepare a strong brine with salt and water.

  2. Soak the walnuts in the brine for 9 days, changing the brine every 3 days.

  3. Drain the walnuts and place them in the sun until they turn black, about 2-3 days.

Pack and pickle

  1. Pack the walnuts into dry jars without filling them completely.

  2. Boil the vinegar with the spices for 10 minutes and pour it hot over the walnuts, ensuring they are fully covered.

  3. Seal the jars and store them in a dry place.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Walnut + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 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

Young walnuts
Provide the main body of the pickle, absorbing the brine and vinegar flavours as they darken.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the walnuts and seasons them during the long brine soak.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy character.
Whole black pepper
Adds warm, pungent aroma that infuses into the vinegar as it is boiled with the spices.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic sweetness to the spiced vinegar.

The step that matters

Sun-darkening the walnuts. The walnuts must be fully drained and dried in the sun until they turn black. Any remaining moisture can dilute the vinegar and encourage spoilage, and the colour only develops properly under full sun exposure.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, allspice, ginger):

  1. Sesamefits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, allspice, ginger. 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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