Name: Boston Brown Bread. Raised with Yeast.
Ingredients: 1 quart cornmeal; 1 quart graham flour; 1 quart rye flour; 1 quart white flour; 1 quart boiling water; 1 pint yeast; 1 small cup molasses; 2 teaspoons salt; ½ cup burnt sugar coloring

Why it works: Flour and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread. Raised with Yeast.

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the cornmeal by pouring boiling water over it in a pan and stirring.
Add molasses, salt, and burnt sugar coloring. Let it cool until warm.
Once warm, strain in the yeast and mix in the graham flour.
Add the rye flour and then the white flour last, leaving some white flour for dusting.
Knead the dough until smooth, then grease the mixing pan lightly.
Place the dough in the pan, cover with a cloth, and let it rise until doubled in size.

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.

Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).