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Dessert

Nut Roll

A baked roll made from nut meats, bread crumbs, butter, eggs, onion, water, salt, paprika, and basted with nut meats and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Nut Roll

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine nut meats, bread crumbs, melted butter, beaten eggs, ground onion, water, salt, and paprika, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. For basting, mix ½ cup nut meats with ½ cup water, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes, basting every 10 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Nut meats
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the roll.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the roll structure and a light, sliceable body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Ground onion
Adds savory aroma and depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Basting every 10 minutes. Regular basting with the nut and water mixture keeps the surface moist so it does not dry out or crust too hard during the 45 minutes in the oven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, butter, egg, pepper. 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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