Why it works: Walnut and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,769 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Pickled Walnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Gather walnuts when the sun is on them and before the shell is hard.
Soak the walnuts in a mixture of strong salt and water for nine days, stirring twice daily and changing the water every three days.
Place the walnuts on a hair sieve and let them air dry until they turn black, about twelve hours.
Pierce each nut several times with a needle and pack them into glass jars.
Boil vinegar with spices for ten minutes.
Pour the cooled vinegar and spices over the nuts in the jars.
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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Walnut + vinegartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,769 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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