Name: Crystalized Cocoa Nut Chips
Ingredients: Cocoa nuts; Sugar

Why it works: Cocoa and nuts work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 65 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Crystalized Cocoa Nut Chips

Ingredients

Cocoa nuts
Sugar

Directions

Remove the rind from the cocoa nuts and slice them thinly.
Place the slices in a crystallizing tin.
Boil enough sugar with water to create a thread consistency.
Pour the hot sugar over the cocoa nut slices.
Let them sit for 12 hours.
Drain the excess sugar and spread the slices on a tray in a drying room for 3 to 4 days, turning them occasionally.
Return the slices to the crystallizing tin.
Boil more sugar until nearly cold and cover the chips again.
Let them sit for another 12 hours.
Strain off any excess liquid and spread the chips on a tray to dry.

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.

Cocoa + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together65 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,228 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Cocoa + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together956 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).