Name: Geeen Walnut Compote
Ingredients: nearly ripe walnuts; water; a few drops of lemon juice; syrup (flavoured with white noyau)

Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Geeen Walnut Compote

Ingredients

nearly ripe walnuts
water
a few drops of lemon juice
syrup (flavoured with white noyau)

Directions

Split the walnuts in half and carefully remove the kernels.
Take off the white pith from the kernels.
Soak the kernels in water with a few drops of lemon juice.
When ready to serve, drain and dry the kernels.
Arrange the kernels in a high pyramid on a serving dish.
Mask the walnuts with syrup.

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.

Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,235 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Walnut + syruptop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together350 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).