Why it works: Nuts and coconut work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 142 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Nut Candy
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and vinegar. Boil for 30 minutes.
Just before removing from heat, stir in the chopped nuts.
In a bowl, beat the egg whites until thick.
Gradually add pulverized sugar to the egg whites.
Fold in half of the coconut drops.
Drop spoonfuls onto buttered paper and place in the oven to dry.
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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Nuts + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together142 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,742 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,228 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, egg, coconut):
- Sesamefits better
- Cashew nutfits better
- Almondfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, egg, coconut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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