Name: Nougat
Ingredients: 4 ounces firm sugar; 6 ounces green pistachios; 6 ounces coarse sugar; 4 pounds sweet almonds; 12 ounces pounded sugar

Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Nougat

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Cut each pistachio crosswise into five equal parts and dry them in the oven.
Mix the dried pistachios with coarse sugar in a small bowl.
Blanch the sweet almonds, cut each in half, then into five fillets, and dry them in the oven until slightly yellow.
Put 1.5 pounds of the dried almonds back in the oven.
In a medium-sized pan, heat pounded sugar over moderate heat until it begins to boil.
Stir the bubbling sugar with a spatula until it dissolves and turns a clear red color.
Remove the pan from the heat.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,233 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).