Why it works: Walnut and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,147 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Walnuts, Wet
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the walnuts
Peel the green rind from the walnuts.
Place the peeled walnuts in cold water.
Boil a pan of water.
Add the walnuts with the pulverized alum to the boiling water.
Blanch the walnuts until a pin can easily pass through them.
Remove the walnuts from the boiling water.
Place the blanched walnuts in cold water to cool.
Drain the walnuts.
Place the drained walnuts in an earthen pan.
Make and apply the syrup
Clarify the sugar.
Boil the clarified sugar until it reaches the little thread stage.
Let the syrup cool.
Pour the cooled syrup over the walnuts.
Drain the syrup from the walnuts.
Reheat the syrup daily without boiling for five days.
Each day, add fresh syrup to replace what the walnuts absorb.
On the fifth day, boil the sugar to the great pearl stage.
Pour the boiled sugar over the walnuts again.
Cover the pan.
Store until ready to dry and use.
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.
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Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,147 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Large green walnuts
- Form the main body of the candy, which takes on syrup as it is steeped.
- Double refined sugar
- Forms the syrup that sweetens the walnuts and sets into a glossy coating as it thickens.
- Pulverized alum
- Firms the walnut flesh during blanching so it holds its shape in the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the sugar to the great pearl stage on the fifth day. Sugar syrup must reach the correct concentration to coat and preserve the walnuts. Boiling too little leaves the syrup thin and watery, while boiling too far makes it hard and brittle.
“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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