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Walnuts in Brandy

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Walnuts in Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Choose unripe walnuts and peel them carefully, placing them in cold water as you peel.

  2. Bring water to a boil and add the walnuts, removing from heat as it begins to boil again.

  3. Drain the walnuts and place them in cold water with a little lemon juice.

  4. Boil cane sugar until it reaches a small thread stage, then drain the walnuts and pour the sugar over them.

  5. Let the walnuts sit in the sugar overnight.

  6. The next day, strain the sugar and boil it again until it forms a longer thread.

  7. Let the walnuts sit in the sugar for another night.

  8. Repeat the boiling and soaking process one more time, allowing the walnuts to sit for a fourth night.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, brandy):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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