Name: Pepper, Cayenne
Ingredients: capsicum (common pepper); flour; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Capsicum and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,571 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pepper, Cayenne

Ingredients

capsicum (common pepper)
flour
coarse sea salt

Directions

Open the berries and remove the seeds.
Beat the scarlet epidermis and pulp with flour and coarse sea salt into a paste.
Bake the paste until hard.
Grind the baked paste into a coarse powder.
Store the powder in well-corked bottles.

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.

Capsicum + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,571 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Capsicum + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,963 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).