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Walnut Sandwiches

A sandwich made with equal parts walnuts and Gruyère cheese, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, mustard, and topped with paprika and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Walnut Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix chopped walnuts and Gruyère cheese in equal quantities.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and mustard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread butter on thinly cut bread and form sandwiches with the walnut mixture.

  2. Use a round cutter to stamp the sandwiches into rounds.

  3. Sprinkle the tops with paprika and finely grated cheese.

  4. Arrange on a serving dish lined with paper and garnish with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Gruyere cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  4. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  5. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft cheese.
Gruyère cheese
Adds savoury richness and binds the walnut filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the bread, softening it and adding flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the cheese.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gruyere cheese, pepper, mustard, bread, butter, cheese, parsley):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Chickpeafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against gruyere cheese, pepper, mustard, bread, butter, cheese, parsley. 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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