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Dessert

Raisin and Walnut

A sweet paste of raisins, walnuts, sugar, water, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raisin and Walnut

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine raisins, walnuts, sugar, and boiling water.

  2. Cook until a thick paste forms.

  3. Add lemon juice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

149Calories
2 gProtein
3 gFat
33 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide sweetness and moisture, and break down into the body of the paste.
English walnuts
Add texture and a nutty bite to the paste.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture thicken as it cooks down.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Cook until a thick paste forms. As water evaporates, the sugar and fruit concentrate and thicken. Stopping too early leaves the paste runny, while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and make it bitter.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, lemon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, lemon. 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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