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Onion Pickle

A pickled onion preserve made with salt, vinegar, spices, and red peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Onion Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the onions

  1. Sprinkle salt over the onions.

  2. Pour boiling water over the onions.

  3. Let the onions stand for 3 to 4 days.

Prepare and pack

  1. Skin the onions.

  2. Wash the onions.

  3. Pack the onions in jars, adding 2 red peppers to each jar.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil vinegar with mustard seed, celery seed, cinnamon bark, mace, and sugar.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the onions.

  3. Seal the jars.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Small white onions
The main vegetable; salting softens them and makes them mild and tender.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, warm aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.
Red peppers
Add colour and a mild, sweet pepper flavour to each jar.

The step that matters

Let the onions stand for 3 to 4 days. Salt draws water out of the onions through osmosis. Standing long enough leaves them firmer and less watery, so they absorb the vinegar well and the pickle keeps its texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, mustard, celery, cinnamon, sugar, pepper. 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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