Why it works: Apple and dates work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Steamed Apples
Ingredients
Directions
Clean the apples thoroughly and cut them in half.
Remove the core from each half.
Place a date or two on each apple half.
Steam the apples until they are very tender.
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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Apple + datestop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together119 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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