Why it works: Ginger and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 418 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Ginger Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Pound and sift the ginger through a fine sieve.
Mix the ginger with sugar to your desired flavor.
Add clear water to form a paste.
If using powdered ginger, you can color the paste with saffron.
For best results, use yellow East India ginger.
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.
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Ginger + saffrontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together418 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + saffrontop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together650 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 saffron
The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Clovefits better
- Saffronthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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