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Savoury Pickled Walnut

A savory bread pudding made with pickled walnuts, milk, eggs, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Savoury Pickled Walnut

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 the mixture

  1. Soak the bread in the milk.

  2. Mash the pickled walnuts.

  3. Melt part of the butter in a pan.

  4. Add the parsley, herbs, onion, eggs, and seasoning.

  5. Add the melted butter to the mixture.

  6. Mix all ingredients well.

Bake

  1. Butter a pie dish with the remaining butter.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Allinson bread
Soaked in milk to form the soft, moist body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when baked, giving it structure.
Pickled walnuts
Provide the sharp, tangy flavour that defines the dish.
Milk
Softens the bread and adds moisture to the custard-like mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and greases the dish to prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves the mixture loose while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Bake only until the centre is firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, walnut, vinegar, parsley, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, walnut, vinegar, parsley, butter. 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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