Name: Boiled Chestnuts
Ingredients: chestnuts; coarse sea salt; sweet cream; butter; white pepper

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Chestnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Shell and remove the skin from the chestnuts.
Pick out any discolored or wormy chestnuts.
Place the chestnuts in a cheesecloth sack.
Boil the sack in salted water until tender.
Pour off the water and remove the chestnuts from the sack.
Simmer the chestnuts in sweet cream for 15 minutes.
Season with butter, salt, and white pepper.
Serve as a vegetable.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chestnut + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together643 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Chestnut + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together965 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,439 recipes
Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).