Name: Apples with Olive Oil
Ingredients: 1 ripe apple; a few spoonfuls of olive oil; nuts

Why it works: Apple and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,565 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Apples with Olive Oil

Ingredients

1 ripe apple
a few spoonfuls of olive oil
nuts

Directions

Peel the apple and cut it into eighths or sixteenths.
Place the apple pieces in a sauce dish.
Pour a few spoonfuls of olive oil over the apple.
Serve with nuts for a delicious breakfast.

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.

Apple + olivetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,565 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Olive + nutstop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together186 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Apple + nutstop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together237 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apple: Provides the fresh, sweet-tart fruit base that the oil and nuts are served with.
Olive oil: Adds richness and a smooth fat coating to the apple pieces.