Name: Wine-plant and Raisin Pie
Ingredients: wine-plant, cut into small pieces; equal bulk of raisins; generous amount of sugar; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 tablespoon water; 2 pie crusts

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wine-plant and Raisin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Cut the wine-plant into small pieces.
Measure an equal amount of raisins.
Sweeten the mixture generously.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour over the filling.
Add 1 tablespoon of water.

Assemble and bake

Fill the pie crusts with the mixture and cover with the second crust.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Wine + raisintop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,324 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Wine + flourtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture to the filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Flour: Thickens the juices released by the filling so it holds together when cut.
Pie crusts: Form the enclosing structure that holds the filling while it bakes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.