Name: Raisin Pie
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins; 1 lemon; 1 cup white sugar; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 cups sugar (for sauce); 1 cup butter (for sauce); ⅓ cup wine (for sauce); 2 eggs (for sauce)

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raisin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the raisins in water for 1 hour, covered.
Add the lemon, white sugar, and flour to the boiled raisins.
For the sauce, beat together the sugar, butter, wine, and eggs.
Pour the sauce over boiling water and mix well.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, flour, sauce, butter, wine, egg):

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, flour, sauce, butter, wine, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.