Name: Lemon Pies
Ingredients: 3 lemons; 1½ cups molasses; 1 teacup raisins, chopped; water, as needed; flour, as needed; 1 pound flour (for pastry); ½ pound lard (for pastry); 1 teaspoon salt (for pastry)

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 ↓

Lemon Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Roll the lemons until soft, then extract the juice into a dish.
Remove the seeds and finely chop the lemon peel.
Chop the raisins and combine with lemon juice, peel, and molasses.
Stir well and add a little water and flour until the mixture is smooth.
For the pastry, rub the lard into the flour.
Gradually add water to the flour mixture until it is not sticky.
Set the dough aside to prevent it from getting wet again.
Add salt to the pastry mixture.

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).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).