Name: Meringue Pie
Ingredients: puff pastry; quince marmalade; egg whites; sugar

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Meringue Pie

Ingredients

puff pastry
quince marmalade
egg whites
sugar

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roll out the puff pastry and place it in a pie pan.
Bake the pastry until golden brown.
Fill the baked pastry with quince marmalade.
Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add sugar until glossy.
Spread the meringue over the marmalade and brown slightly in the oven.

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.

Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,444 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Quince + eggtop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together222 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).