Name: Stewed Chestnuts
Ingredients: 1 pint chestnuts; 1 tablespoon malt; a little vanilla

Why it works: Chestnut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 244 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stewed Chestnuts

Ingredients

1 pint chestnuts
1 tablespoon malt
a little vanilla

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts as in the preceding recipe and cook until mealy.
Add a little vanilla and 1 tablespoon of malt to the cooked chestnuts.
Heat the mixture and serve.

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.

Chestnut + vanillatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together244 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Malt + vanillatop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Chestnut + malttop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts: Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and mealy when cooked.
Malt: Adds a mild sweetness and a toasty, caramel-like flavor to the chestnuts.