Name: Pineapple Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup grated pineapple; 2 tablespoons thick sugar syrup

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup grated pineapple
2 tablespoons thick sugar syrup

Directions

Grate the pineapple finely.
Mix the grated pineapple with the thick sugar syrup.
Serve with puddings or fritters.

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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pineapple + syruptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grated pineapple: Provides the fruity flavour and bright acidity that form the body of the sauce.
Thick sugar syrup: Adds sweetness and body, rounding out the pineapple's tartness.