Why it works: Peach and red currant work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Flan of Peaches
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare a crust by making 1 pound of short paste.
Grease a fluted circular or oval mold (2 inches high, 8 inches in diameter) with butter.
Line the mold with the paste, cut the edges level, and pinch the top edges with pastry pincers.
Fill the case with flour mixed with ⅙ pound of chopped suet and bake until three-quarters done.
Remove the flour and brush the case clean.
Fill the case with halves of peaches simmered in thin syrup for 5 minutes.
Bake again for 15 minutes.
Arrange a close row of peach halves on top, add a peach kernel to each, and pour jelly over the whole before serving.
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.
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Peach + red curranttop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together33 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,540 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Flour + peachtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together787 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Swap the red currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, peach, syrup):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Figfits better
- Red currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, peach, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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