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Texas Pecan Timbales

A pecan custard baked in earthen molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Texas Pecan Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Grind the blanched pecan nut meats to a paste after simmering them in sweet cider for 30 minutes.

  2. Mix in the crumb of the bread, melted butter, cream, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and grated lemon rind.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into small earthen molds.

  2. Cook in a pan of water for 20 minutes.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pecan nut meats
Provide the main flavor and body of the timbale, thickened into a paste.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk and soak up butter and cream to give a soft, tender set.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when cooked.
Egg whites
Folded in to lighten the mixture and help it rise and set with airy structure.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat for a moist, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air only when deflated as little as possible. Vigorous stirring knocks out the air, leaving a dense timbale instead of a light, risen one.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cider, bread, butter, cream, egg, pepper):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cider, bread, butter, cream, egg, 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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