Name: Stewing Fruits
Ingredients: dried fruits (raisins, figs, dates); cold water; coarse sea salt (to taste)

Why it works: Fig and dates work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Stewing Fruits

Ingredients

dried fruits (raisins, figs, dates)
cold water
coarse sea salt (to taste)

Directions

Wash and pick over the dried fruits carefully.
Soak the fruits in cold water for several hours until soft and swollen.
Stew the fruits in the same soaking water with as little additional water as possible.

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 + datestop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + datestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together358 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).