Name: Apples, Stewed, in Halves
Ingredients: 6 baking apples; 3 tablespoons sugar; a little water; rind of 1 lemon; juice of 1 lemon; rind of 1 orange; juice of 1 orange

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Apples, Stewed, in Halves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pare, core, and halve the apples.

Cook

Place the apples in a saucepan with sugar, a little water, lemon rind and juice, and orange rind and juice.
Simmer gently for 30 minutes until soft.

Serve

Serve with the strained syrup poured over the apples.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Baking apples: Provide the main body of the dish, softening into a tender fruit during gentle simmering.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps form a syrup with the fruit juices.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Orange rind and juice: Adds citrus aroma and additional fruity flavour to the syrup.