Name: Pear Fritters
Ingredients: ripe pears; rich batter; cream; boiling fat; castor sugar; angelica for garnish

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pear Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the cores from the pears, then peel and cut them into halves.
Dip the pear halves into a rich batter mixed with a little cream.
Fry the pears in boiling fat for three to four minutes until golden.
Drain the fritters on paper towels.
Arrange neatly on a dish, sift castor sugar over them, and garnish with angelica.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Pear + angelicatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together39 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Cream + angelicatop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together237 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Sugar + angelicatop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together487 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).