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Walnut Roast

A baked walnut and tomato mixture with breadcrumbs, onions, herbs, egg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 246 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Walnut 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 the roast

  1. Thoroughly blend the walnuts, strained tomatoes, breadcrumbs, onions, marjoram or thyme, salt, and beaten egg.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pan.

  3. Bake for 40 minutes, basting with melted butter and hot water.

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. Walnut + wheattop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Tomato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

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

  4. Walnut + marjoramtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Tomato + marjoramtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the bulk and rich, savory body of the roast.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and add softness to the texture.
Strained tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the roast from drying out.

The step that matters

Basting during the bake. Brushing with melted butter and hot water adds moisture and fat to the surface, helping it brown and stay tender while the egg sets the interior.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, tomato, wheat, marjoram, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, tomato, wheat, marjoram, egg, 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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