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Onion Pickle

A pickled condiment made from small onions, turmeric, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, mace, ginger, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Onion Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the small onions.

  2. Pour boiling brine over the onions and let them stand for one week.

  3. Remove the onions from the brine and sun them on a cloth for one day.

Season and pickle

  1. In a large bowl, combine the turmeric, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, mace, and ginger.

  2. Season the vinegar and cool it.

  3. Pour the cooled vinegar over the onions.

  4. Let the mixture sit until the vinegar penetrates the onions.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Small onions
Form the main body of the pickle, becoming tender and absorbing the spiced vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a warm, earthy flavour.

The step that matters

Letting the vinegar penetrate the onions. The vinegar must be cooled before it is poured over the onions; hot vinegar would soften and cook them unevenly. Allowing the mixture to sit gives the acid and spices time to diffuse into the onion layers so the pickle is flavoured throughout rather than just on the surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, sugar, clove, allspice, cinnamon, mace, ginger):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, sugar, clove, allspice, cinnamon, mace, 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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