Name: Feozbn Apples
Ingredients: 10 apples; Sugar to taste; A few grains of salt; Boiling water; ⅔ cup cider; 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Feozbn Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash, peel, core, and cut the apples into quarters.
Place the apples in a saucepan, sprinkle with sugar, and add a pinch of salt.

Cook and strain

Cover the apples with boiling water and cook until soft, allowing the water to nearly evaporate.
Pass the mixture through a sieve.
Stir in the cider and lemon juice.

Freeze and serve

Freeze the mixture until it reaches a mushy consistency and serve in cups made from bright red 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.

Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,238 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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).
Cider + lemontop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together986 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Apples: Provide the main body, pectin, and sweet-tart flavor of the compote.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and softens the tartness of the apples.
Cider: Adds liquid and fruity apple aroma to the mixture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the apple color fresh.

The step that matters

Cooking until soft with water nearly evaporated. If the apples are undercooked, the purée stays grainy; if the water is not reduced enough, the mixture will freeze icy and watery. Cooking until the apples are soft and the liquid has mostly cooked off concentrates flavor and gives a smooth, mushy texture after freezing.