Name: Gooseberry Pies or Tarts
Ingredients: Gooseberries; Coarse sugar; Coarse sea salt; Cinnamon; Allspice; Cloves; Nutmeg; Mace; Pastry for pie or tart

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Gooseberry Pies or Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Remove all stalks and blossoms from the gooseberries.
For pies, prepare them like rhubarb pies.
For tarts, strain the gooseberries through a coarse sieve.
Add sugar and spices while the fruit is hot.
Ensure the fruit is completely cold before placing it on the pastry.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg):

Cardamomfits better
Gingerfits better
Winter savoryfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.