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To Pickle Onions

A quick pickled onion recipe using salt, water, vinegar, pepper, mustard seed, and optional sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Peel the onions until they are white.

  2. Soak the onions in a mixture of salt and water for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the onions with a skimmer.

Pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar until hot.

  2. Strew whole black pepper and white mustard seed over the onions.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar over the onions to cover them.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool.

Bottle and seal

  1. Transfer the onions to wide-mouthed bottles.

  2. Add sweet oil to the bottles before sealing, if desired.

  3. Seal with corks.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

White vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the onions and gives them their sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the onions during the soak, firming them and seasoning them.
White button onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming crisp-tender and mild as they sit in the brine.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar over the onions to cover them. The onions must be fully submerged in the acidic liquid so no part is exposed to air, which helps prevent spoilage and keeps the texture and colour even.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, 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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