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Nut and Cheese Roast

A baked dish of grated cheese, nuts, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Nut and Cheese 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 the mixture

  1. Cook the chopped onion in the butter with a little water until tender.

  2. Mix the grated cheese, bread crumbs, chopped nuts, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the water used to cook the onion.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a shallow baking dish.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding richness and savory flavor to the roast.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the roast a light, crumbly body that holds its shape.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, rich flavor that contrasts with the soft crumbs.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the onion cook gently and become tender.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and moisture once softened in butter.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture with the onion cooking water. Bread crumbs need enough liquid to soften and bind with the cheese and nuts. Too little leaves a dry, crumbly roast, while too much makes it soggy and slow to brown.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, bread, onion, lemon, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, bread, onion, lemon, pepper. 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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