Name: Apple Fritters
Ingredients: apples; flour; fritter batter; lemon sauce or nutmeg sauce

Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

apples
flour
fritter batter
lemon sauce or nutmeg sauce

Directions

Peel, core, and slice the apples.
Dust the apple slices with flour.
Dip the floured apple slices into the fritter batter.
Fry the apple slices until golden brown.
Serve with lemon sauce or nutmeg sauce.

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.

Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).