Name: Cocoanut Fritters
Ingredients: ½ pound shredded coconut; lemon fritter paste; vanilla sauce

Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Fritters

Ingredients

½ pound shredded coconut
lemon fritter paste
vanilla sauce

Directions

Add the shredded coconut to the lemon fritter paste.
Fry the mixture until golden brown.
Serve with vanilla 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.

Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,294 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,233 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Coconut + saucetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together239 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,598 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).