Name: Pistachio Comfits
Ingredients: 8 pounds pistachio kernels; sugar; distilled water of roses or orange-flower (optional); essences for flavoring (optional)

Why it works: Pistachio and rose work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pistachio Comfits

Ingredients

8 pounds pistachio kernels
sugar
distilled water of roses or orange-flower (optional)
essences for flavoring (optional)

Directions

Dry the pistachio kernels in the stove for a little while.
Fill the hollow at the top of the pistachios with sugar.
Sift sugar through a silk sieve and powder the nuts in the first three charges to cover any irregularities.
To flavor with roses or orange-flower, clarify the sugar with the distilled water of those flowers.
For other flavors, add essences to the middle layers if desired.

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.

Pistachio + rosetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pistachio + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,233 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,584 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).