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Fruit and Nut Fillings

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Fruit and Nut Fillings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the olives finely and mix with salad dressing.

  2. Chop the walnuts, almonds, pecans, or peanuts very finely and combine with salad dressing.

  3. Chop the dates finely and moisten with cream or a mild salad dressing.

  4. Soak seeded raisins in hot water for 15 minutes, then chop finely and mix with salad dressing.

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 + pecanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Olive + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

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

  4. Olive + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

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

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

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, cheese, chicken, veal, walnut, almond, pecans):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, cheese, chicken, veal, walnut, almond, pecans. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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