Name: Pear, Peach and Apple Pudding
Ingredients: ¾ pound ripe pears; a few cloves; lemon juice

Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pear, Peach and Apple Pudding

Ingredients

¾ pound ripe pears
a few cloves
lemon juice

Directions

Pare the pears and cut them into pieces.
Place the pears in a saucepan with a few cloves.
Add lemon juice to taste.
Cook until the pears are soft.
Serve warm or cold.

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.

Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together512 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

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