Skip to main content
Salad

Walnut Sauce

A sauce made from walnuts, almonds, bread soaked in vinegar, garlic, salt, fried in oil, served over fish or meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Walnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Walnut Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Pound the walnuts and almonds in a mortar until fine.

  2. Soak the slice of bread in vinegar, then add to the nuts.

  3. Add the garlic and pound until well combined.

  4. Stir in the salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the mixture in oil until heated through.

  2. Pour over fish or meat before serving.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Provide the main body and rich, slightly bitter nutty flavor of the sauce.
Almonds
Add a milder, sweeter nut flavor and help thicken the pounded paste.
Bread
Soaked in vinegar, it adds body and helps bind the nut paste into a smooth sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and softens the bread for blending.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma and savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the mixture in oil. Frying only until heated through keeps the nuts and garlic from browning too far or turning bitter, while warming the sauce evenly so it blends smoothly with the oil.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, almond, bread, vinegar, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, almond, bread, vinegar, clove. 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.

More walnut sauce recipes

Anchovy 4 See all 11 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes