Name: Fresh Fruit Pie
Ingredients: 1 quart fresh ripe strawberries; 1 pie crust (made of nutcoa or peanut meal); 2 tablespoons chopped almonds, walnuts, hickory nuts, or peanut meal; 1 tablespoon white flour; ½ cup sugar

Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fresh Fruit Pie

Ingredients

1 quart fresh ripe strawberries
1 pie crust (made of nutcoa or peanut meal)
2 tablespoons chopped almonds, walnuts, hickory nuts, or peanut meal
1 tablespoon white flour
½ cup sugar

Directions

Prepare

Hull and wash the strawberries.
Place the strawberries in a pie tin lined with the crust.

Assemble and bake

Sprinkle the nuts over the strawberries.
Add the flour and then sprinkle the sugar on top.
Cover with another crust and bake until lightly browned.

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.

Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Peanut + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Peanut + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,427 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries: Provide the main fruit filling and its fresh flavor and juice.
White flour: Thickens the juices released by the strawberries as the pie bakes.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juice from the berries.
Nuts: Add texture and a toasted, nutty flavor to the filling.