Name: Raisin or Currant Butter
Ingredients: dried figs; ground nuts; lettuce; chopped apples

Why it works: Fig and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raisin or Currant Butter

Ingredients

dried figs
ground nuts
lettuce
chopped apples

Directions

Prepare the dried figs by removing the stems and chopping them finely.
Mix the chopped figs with ground nuts.
Serve the mixture with lettuce or chopped apples.

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.

Fig + appletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together238 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Fig + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together26 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Fig + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lettuce + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).