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Walnut Loaf

A savory loaf made with walnuts, tomatoes, bread crumbs, rice, onion, garlic, egg, parsley, salt, pepper, topped with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Walnut Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the ground walnuts, tomatoes, bread crumbs, boiled rice, onion, garlic, beaten egg, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a loaf pan and bake until nearly done.

Top and finish

  1. Remove from the oven and cover the top with a layer of mashed potatoes.

  2. Return to the oven and bake until the potatoes are browned.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Walnut + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground walnuts
Provide the bulk and rich, nutty body that holds the loaf together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape as it sets.
Boiled rice
Adds soft bulk and moisture, lightening the texture of the loaf.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture so it sets firm when baked.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the loaf.

The step that matters

Baking until nearly done before topping. Baking the loaf until nearly done sets its structure first, so the mashed potato topping can brown without the loaf drying out or overbaking underneath.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, tomato, bread, rice, onion, garlic, egg):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, tomato, bread, rice, onion, garlic, egg. 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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