Name: Fancy Stuffed Dates
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons jelly; ¼ cup chopped English walnuts; 1 tablespoon crystallized ginger, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon sweet pickle, finely chopped; dates; powdered sugar

Why it works: Walnut and dates work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fancy Stuffed Dates

Ingredients

2 tablespoons jelly
¼ cup chopped English walnuts
1 tablespoon crystallized ginger, finely chopped
1 tablespoon sweet pickle, finely chopped
dates
powdered sugar

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix jelly, chopped walnuts, crystallized ginger, and sweet pickle until well combined.
Remove the stones from the dates.

Fill and coat

Fill each date with the mixture.
Roll the stuffed dates in powdered sugar.

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.

Walnut + datestop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together302 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Walnut + gingertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together985 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ginger + datestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Jelly: Adds sweetness and moisture to bind the filling together.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a nutty texture against the soft date.
Crystallized ginger: Adds sharp, aromatic spice and a bit of chewy sweetness.
Powdered sugar: Forms a sweet, dry coating on the outside of the dates.