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Pine-kernel Cheese

A spread made from pine kernels blended with tomato and optional carrot or other juice pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pine-kernel Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pine kernels and dry them in a clean cloth.

  2. Pick over the kernels to remove any bad ones or bits of hard shell.

  3. Blanch the tomato in boiling water for a few minutes, then remove the skin.

Make the cheese

  1. Process the kernels in a nut-butter mill until smooth.

  2. Mix the processed pine kernels with the beaten pulp of the tomato.

  3. Optionally, add raw carrot juice or any other vegetable or fruit juice pulp to the mixture.

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. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  2. Pine + carrottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pine + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pine kernels
Provide the fat and body that make the mixture smooth and creamy when milled.
Tomato
Adds moisture and acidity, loosening the paste and giving it a bright, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Processing the kernels until smooth. Pine kernels are rich in oil, and milling them fully releases it to form a smooth paste. Stopping early leaves a grainy texture, while over-processing can warm the oils and make the paste greasy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pine, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pine, carrot. 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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