Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
A Plain Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a pie crust with sliced apples, making it at least 1 inch thick.
Add a little water to the apples and cover with a richer top crust.
To make the top crust, roll out part of the same dough, cover it with bits of butter, fold it, and roll it out again, repeating this 2-3 times.
Cut a few slits in the top crust to let steam escape while baking.
Brush the top with beaten egg yolk.
Bake the pie until golden brown.
Once baked, carefully lift off the top crust while still hot.
Add sugar, nutmeg, and a little butter to the apples and mix well.
Replace the top crust and dust it with powdered sugar.
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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Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,790 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together24,744 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, nutmeg):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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