Name: Stewed Peaches
Ingredients: 1 bottle preserved peaches; 1 ½ tablespoons sugar; a few drops essence of bitter almonds

Why it works: Peach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Peaches

Ingredients

1 bottle preserved peaches
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
a few drops essence of bitter almonds

Directions

Make a clear syrup by combining the juice from the peaches with 1 ½ tablespoons of sugar.
Add a few drops of essence of bitter almonds to the syrup.
Pour the syrup over the preserved peaches.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).