Name: Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients: 2 cups stewed pumpkin; ⅔ cup sugar; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ginger; milk (enough to fill a quart cup); pie crust

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

In a bowl, combine the stewed pumpkin, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.
Pour the mixture into a quart cup and add enough milk to fill the cup.

Bake

Line a pie plate with the crust and fill it with the pumpkin mixture.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

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.

Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,158 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Stewed pumpkin: Provides the bulk and body of the filling, which sets as the pie bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices in the filling.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling set into a smooth custard.