Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apple Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Combine the apples and water in a saucepan and cook until soft.
Press the mixture through a wire sieve and return it to the saucepan over heat.
Add the sugar and butter, then mix the corn starch with a little cold water and stir it in.
Cook until it boils for three minutes, then remove from heat and add lemon or cinnamon to taste.
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.
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Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + corntop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together330 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Break down into a soft pulp that forms the body of the sauce.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the sauce as it heats and boils, giving it a smooth body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the sour apples.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the sauce.
The step that matters
Boiling the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and is held there, so stopping early leaves the sauce thin. Stirring it in evenly with cold water first prevents lumps.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, butter, corn):
- Vanillafits better
- Pearfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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