Name: Raised Pies
Ingredients: 4 teaspoons nutmeg; 4 teaspoons cloves; 2 teaspoons mace; 2 teaspoons pimento; 2 teaspoons laurel leaves; 2 teaspoons thyme; 2 teaspoons basil; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Raised Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Mix together all the spices and salt.
Let the mixture dry completely.
Pound and sift the dried mixture.
Store it in a tin box in a dry place.

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.

Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Laurel + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,444 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,768 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Clove + laureltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,516 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, clove, laurel, thyme, basil):

Marjoramfits better
Allspicefits better
Winter savoryfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, clove, laurel, thyme, basil. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.