Name: Plum Broth
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins; 4 quarts water; 1 tablespoon Indian meal; flour (for thickening); water (for thickening); nutmeg (to taste); sugar (to taste); small piece of butter; a little wine (optional)

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plum Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

Boil the raisins in water for two hours.
Stir in the Indian meal when it begins to boil.

Thicken and finish

Make a thickening with flour and water.
Grate in some nutmeg and sweeten to taste.
Add a small piece of butter and a little wine if preferred.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins: Provide the main fruit flavour and sweetness as they simmer and soften in the water.
Indian meal: Thickens the broth as it heats, giving it body.
Flour: Thickens the liquid when mixed with water and stirred in, adding body.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished broth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, sugar, butter, wine):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegthe original
Jalapenofits less well
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, sugar, butter, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.