Name: Quince Cordial
Ingredients: 4 quinces; 1 pound sugar; 2 cups brandy; spices of your choice

Why it works: Quince and brandy work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Quince Cordial

Ingredients

4 quinces
1 pound sugar
2 cups brandy
spices of your choice

Directions

Prepare the quinces

Pare and core the quinces, then grate them.
Boil the grated quinces along with the cores and parings.
Strain the mixture to obtain the juice.

Finish the cordial

To the juice, add 1 pound of sugar and 2 cups of brandy.
Stir in your choice of spices.

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.

Quince + brandytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together91 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,444 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

What each ingredient does

Quinces: Provide the fruit flavour and pectin that give the juice its body and aroma.
Sugar: Sweetens the juice and helps preserve the finished cordial.
Brandy: Adds alcohol that carries aroma and helps preserve the cordial.