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To Tickle Onions

A pickled onion preparation preserved in vinegar with ginger, mace, and 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 ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,595 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Tickle Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Brine the onions

  1. Soak onions in salt and water for 9 days, changing the water daily.

  2. After 9 days, place onions in jars and pour fresh boiling salt water over them. Cover jars until the mixture cools.

  3. Make a second boiling salt water solution and pour it over the onions. Once cooled, drain onions using a fine sieve.

Pickle and store

  1. Place onions in wide-mouthed bottles and fill with distilled vinegar.

  2. Add a slice or two of ginger, a blade of mace, and 2 teaspoons of sweet oil to each bottle. Cork the bottles tightly and store in a dry place.

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 + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Main vegetable; the salt soak softens them and draws out harshness before pickling.
Salt
Draws water out of the onions during the soak and seasons them throughout.
Distilled vinegar
Acid that preserves the onions and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the vinegar and onions.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the ginger.
Sweet oil
Adds richness and a layer of fat on top of the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Changing the water daily during the 9-day soak. Fresh water each day pulls out sharp sulfur compounds and excess salt from the onions, keeping them mild and crisp rather than bitter or overly salty.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, 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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