Why it works: Pumpkin and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,404 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Pumpkin Seed
Ingredients
Directions
Take 1 teaspoon of oleoresin aspidium and 10 drops of chloroform.
Mix with 13 ounces of emulsion of pumpkin seeds.
Divide into 3 doses to be taken an hour apart.
Follow each dose with rochelle salts an hour later.
Crush pumpkin seeds and mix with milk and sugar to form a paste, then strain.
Fast and clean out the bowels before taking at night, followed by castor oil or rochelle salts in the morning.
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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Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,404 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pumpkin + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,350 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Swap the pumpkin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits better
- Pumpkinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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