Name: A Souffle of Ginger
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; 1/4 pound butter; flour (enough to dry up the butter); 3 eggs; 1/2 pound preserved ginger, cut into small pieces; 1/3 cup brandy; cinnamon (to taste); sugar (to taste)

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Souffle of Ginger

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the milk with a little cinnamon and enough sugar to sweeten for about 15 minutes.
Strain the milk into a bowl and let it cool.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over heat.
Add enough flour to the melted butter to nearly dry it up, stirring continuously.
Remove from heat and add the eggs one at a time, mixing each in well before adding the next.
Once all eggs are mixed in and the mixture is smooth, add the cooled milk and stir well.
Fold in the preserved ginger and brandy.

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovefits about as well
Gingerthe original

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