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Walnut Sandwich

A sandwich made with boiled walnut spread, seasoned with bay leaf, celery tops, onion, salt, and cayenne or paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Walnut Sandwich

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the walnuts

  1. Shell the walnuts.

  2. Place the kernels in boiling water.

  3. Boil for 1 minute.

  4. Drain the walnuts.

Simmer and assemble

  1. Cover with stock.

  2. Add the bay leaf, celery tops, and onion slice.

  3. Cook gently for 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the mixture.

  5. Skim the mixture.

  6. Chop the mixture finely.

  7. Add salt and cayenne or paprika.

  8. Spread the mixture between thin slices of buttered bread.

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 + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Walnut + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

English walnuts
Provide the main bulk and rich, nutty flavor of the filling.
Buttered bread
Holds the chopped walnut filling and adds softness and richness to each bite.
Bay leaf
Contributes a subtle aromatic flavor to the liquid during the gentle cook.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 20 minutes. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the walnuts soften and flavor the stock without breaking apart or turning bitter from over-extraction.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, celery, bread. 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 sandwich recipes

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