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To Pickle Walnuts

A method for preserving walnuts by soaking them in saltwater and then pickling them in a spiced vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Pickle Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Gather the walnuts in mid-July, before the shell forms.

  2. Prick each walnut several times with a needle.

  3. Soak the walnuts in saltwater for 2–3 days, changing the water daily.

Brine and blacken

  1. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg; boil it and skim the surface, then let it cool.

  2. Soak the walnuts in the brine for 6 days.

  3. Change the brine and soak the walnuts for another 6 days.

  4. Drain the walnuts and expose them to the sun until they turn black.

Pickle and store

  1. In a jar, combine white-wine vinegar with pepper, pimento, ginger, mace, cloves, mustard seed, and horseradish; boil the mixture and let it cool.

  2. Pour the vinegar mixture over the walnuts, ensuring they are fully covered.

  3. Seal the jar; the walnuts will be ready to eat in 6 months and can last for several years.

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. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 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

Walnuts
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming firm and dark as they cure.
White-wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the walnuts and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp heat that stands up to the long pickling period.
Black pepper
Adds pungent warmth that deepens the flavour of the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Brining and sun-blackening the walnuts. Soaking in a brine strong enough to float an egg draws out moisture and bitterness, and the walnuts need full coverage in fresh brine. Skimming and cooling the brine keeps it clean, and too little salt or a weak brine can let the walnuts spoil or stay bitter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, wine, vinegar, mustard, pepper, shallot, ginger):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, wine, vinegar, mustard, pepper, shallot, 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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