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Vegetable Roast

A baked loaf made from lentils, tomatoes, nutmeat, granola, gluten, egg, onion, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and tomato work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 463 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Roast

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).

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the lentils, tomatoes, nutmeat, granola, gluten, egg, onion, and salt until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  3. Bake until solid enough to slice when cold.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool before slicing.

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. Lentils + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Lentils + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Egg and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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

Lentils
Provide the bulk and body of the roast.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when sliced.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the mixture.
Nutmeat
Adds richness and helps the roast hold its shape.
Granola and gluten
Absorb moisture and add texture and structure.

The step that matters

Cooling before slicing. The egg proteins set as the roast bakes, but the loaf is still soft when hot and can crumble. Letting it cool allows the structure to firm up so clean slices hold together.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, tomato, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, tomato, 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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