Name: Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients: 1 quart steamed pumpkin; 3 eggs; 1 pint milk; 1 egg-sized piece of butter; sugar to taste; cinnamon to taste; whisky to taste

Why it works: Pumpkin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,744 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Steam the pumpkin until thoroughly cooked, then press it through a colander.
In a bowl, combine the steamed pumpkin, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and whisky.
Mix well until smooth.
Pour the mixture into pie crusts to make two medium-sized pies.

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.

Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,404 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, whisky):

Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Figfits better
Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, whisky. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.