Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Radishes

Deviled radishes are boiled radishes topped with nuts, cheese, tomato sauce, and cracker crumbs, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Deviled Radishes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and boil radishes until tender, adding salt to the water when nearly done.

  2. Place in a buttered shallow glass baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and grated cheese.

  2. Cover with thick, seasoned tomato sauce and sprinkle with cracker crumbs.

  3. Grate cheese over the top and brown in a hot oven.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Radish + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Walnut + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  5. Radish + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Radishes
Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender base when boiled.
Butter
Greases the dish and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and tangy flavor that coats the radishes as they bake.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.
Cracker crumbs
Add a crisp, toasted layer on top that contrasts with the soft radishes.

The step that matters

Brown in a hot oven. The top must be hot enough to brown the cheese and crumbs quickly. If the oven is too cool, the radishes can release liquid and stay pale and soggy under the sauce.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, walnut, cheese, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, walnut, cheese, tomato, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes