Name: Lemon Mince Pies
Ingredients: 3 large lemons; 1 pound beef suet; ¾ pound currants; ½ pound raisins, stoned and chopped; 1 pound fine sugar; brandy to taste; sweetmeats to taste

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lemon Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Squeeze the juice from the lemons.
Boil the lemon peel and pulp until soft enough to pound fine.
In a bowl, mix the pounded lemon mixture with beef suet, currants, raisins, and sugar.
Stir in the lemon juice and a little brandy.
Add sweetmeats to your taste.

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.

Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, currant, raisin, sugar, brandy):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, currant, raisin, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.