Name: Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients: 1 cup canned pumpkin; 1 cup dark brown sugar; 1 tablespoon butter; 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger; 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 2 eggs, slightly beaten; 2/3 cup milk

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 ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the pumpkin, brown sugar, butter, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat.
Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs and milk.
Strain the mixture to remove any lumps.
Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.

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).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, milk):

Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Raisinfits better
Pumpkinthe original

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