Name: Walnut Creams
Ingredients: 1 egg white; ½ cup water; confectioner's sugar; English walnut meats

Why it works: Walnut and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,035 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Walnut Creams

Ingredients

1 egg white
½ cup water
confectioner's sugar
English walnut meats

Directions

In a dish, break the egg white and add the water.
Stir in confectioner's sugar until stiff.
Roll a portion of the cream thick and cut into round pieces.
Place an English walnut meat on each piece or sandwich the cream between two walnut meats.

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.

Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,147 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).