Name: Lentil Loaf
Ingredients: 1 medium onion, minced; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1/4 lb mushrooms, minced; 1 cup dried lentils, ground fine in your coffee or seed grinder; 1 tbsp fresh thyme or 1/2 tbsp dried; 1 pinch each of ground cloves, nutmeg and cayenne pepper; Equivalent of 2 eggs in egg replacer (see Substitutions section of this website); 1 cup natural or organic tomato juice (no additives); 2 tbsp slivered almonds

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,368 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

1 medium onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb mushrooms, minced
1 cup dried lentils, ground fine in your coffee or seed grinder
1 tbsp fresh thyme or 1/2 tbsp dried
1 pinch each of ground cloves, nutmeg and cayenne pepper
Equivalent of 2 eggs in egg replacer (see Substitutions section of this website)
1 cup natural or organic tomato juice (no additives)
2 tbsp slivered almonds

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a loaf pan. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and sauté the onions, garlic and mushrooms until soft. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Pour into a loaf pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is browned and the loaf is fairly dry.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,368 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together29,030 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Thyme + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + clovetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,210 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together13,144 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, garlic, mushroom, lentils, thyme, clove, pepper):

Marjorambetter flavor fit
Cuminbetter flavor fit
Rosemarybetter flavor fit
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, garlic, mushroom, lentils, thyme, clove, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).