Name: Of Peares, and Appulles
Ingredients: mellow pears; sugar or comfits; fennel seeds or anise seeds

Why it works: Pear and fennel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Of Peares, and Appulles

Ingredients

mellow pears
sugar or comfits
fennel seeds or anise seeds

Directions

Choose mellow and sweet pears that are not stony.
Serve them with sugar or comfits, or with fennel seeds or anise seeds.
Roast or bake the pears for better digestion.

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.

Pear + fenneltop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together18 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + fenneltop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together408 recipes

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