Name: Baked Peaches and Pears
Ingredients: 4 medium-sized freestone peaches; 2 teaspoons butter; 2 teaspoons sugar (or more to taste); Nutmeg (to taste)

Why it works: Peach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Peaches and Pears

Ingredients

4 medium-sized freestone peaches
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons sugar (or more to taste)
Nutmeg (to taste)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Pare the peaches, cut them in half, and remove the stones.
Place the peach halves in a baking dish, hollow side up.
Add 2 teaspoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of sugar into each peach half.
Sprinkle nutmeg generously over the peaches.
Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until soft.
Serve hot.

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.

Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together860 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).