Name: Compote of Peaches and Apricots
Ingredients: Peaches; Apricots; 1 pint water; A little lemon; Syrup

Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Compote of Peaches and Apricots

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the fruit in half and remove the stones.
Blanch the fruit in boiling water with a little lemon for 2 minutes.
Transfer the fruit to cold or ice water immediately to keep them white, then peel.
In a porcelain pan, bring 1 pint of water to a boil.
Add the apricots or peaches to the boiling water and skim off the foam.
Once soft, remove the fruit and place it on a dish, then pour syrup over it.

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.

Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Peach + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together947 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,098 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Peach + syruptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together210 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).