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Walnuts a LA Creme

Walnuts simmered in seasoned stock, then coated with rich cream sauce and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Walnuts a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the walnuts, keeping the halves intact.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the walnuts slowly for 20 minutes in seasoned white stock or water with bay leaf, onion, celery, clove, white pepper, coarse sea salt, celery salt, and paprika.

  2. When tender, drain the walnuts and cover with rich cream sauce.

  3. Serve in a deep vegetable dish and garnish with parsley.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

English walnuts
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Rich cream sauce
Adds richness and moisture, coating the walnuts with a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the walnuts slowly. Slow simmering over gentle heat lets the walnuts soften evenly and absorb the seasoned liquid without breaking apart or drying out.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, onion, celery, clove, cream, sauce, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, onion, celery, clove, cream, sauce, parsley. 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.

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