Name: Raisin Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pound chopped raisins; juice of 1 lemon; nutmeg sauce

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Raisin Sauce

Ingredients

1 pound chopped raisins
juice of 1 lemon
nutmeg sauce

Directions

Prepare the nutmeg sauce.
Add the chopped raisins to the nutmeg sauce.
Stir in the juice of one lemon.

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.

Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Nutmeg + saucetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,244 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raisin + saucetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).