Name: Chestnut Puree with Cream
Ingredients: large French chestnuts; 1 teaspoon butter; salt; sugar (to taste); flavoring (to taste); cream (to taste); whipped cream (sweetened and flavored)

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chestnut Puree with Cream

Ingredients

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).
Cut a cross on the shell of each chestnut with a sharp knife.
Place the chestnuts in a pan with the butter and bake until the shells are broken open.
Boil the chestnuts in hot water with a little salt until tender.
Mash the chestnuts through a puree sieve.
In a double boiler, combine the chestnut puree with sugar, flavoring, and a little cream.
Stir over hot water until almost dry.
Press the mixture through a colander or potato ricer onto a serving dish to form a mound.
Surround the mound with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Chestnut + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together643 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).