Name: Pork Recipes
Ingredients: ½ pint sherry wine; ½ cup hot water; 3 tablespoons white granulated sugar; 1 teaspoon browned flour

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Pork Recipes

Ingredients

½ pint sherry wine
½ cup hot water
3 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon browned flour

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).
Combine sherry wine, hot water, and sugar in a roasting pan.
Roast the pork, basting with the wine every five minutes, until golden brown, about 30 minutes.
Transfer the pork to a warm chafing dish and skim off the fat from the pan.
Mix browned flour with a little water and stir into the pan.
Let the mixture boil for a few minutes, then add more wine, water, and sugar.
Serve the gravy with the ham.

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sherry + flourtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,643 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,141 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Wine + flourtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

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