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Nut Meat

A vegetarian meat substitute made from tomato pulp, almond butter, Brazil nuts, wheat gluten, bread crumbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and brazil nut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Nut Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the tomato pulp, almond butter, Brazil nuts, wheat gluten, bread crumbs, and beaten eggs, then thoroughly mix and beat the mixture until well combined.

  2. Divide the mixture into molds or sealed basins.

Cook

  1. Steam or boil the molds for 5 hours.

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. Almond + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  3. Almond + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm loaf when heated.
Wheat gluten
Adds chewy structure that helps the loaf hold its shape.
Almond butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer, moist texture.
Brazil nuts
Provide body and nutty flavour as the main nut component.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the loaf a firmer, sliceable body.
Tomato pulp
Adds moisture and mild acidity to the mixture.

The step that matters

Divide the mixture into molds or sealed basins. The mixture is loose and wet before cooking. Filling containers evenly and sealing them well keeps moisture in and gives an even, firm set during long steaming or boiling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter, brazil nut, wheat, bread, egg):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, brazil nut, wheat, bread, 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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