Name: Red Currant Syrup
Ingredients: 3 lbs sugar; a pinch of cream of tartar; equal parts of extract of vanilla, rose, almond, and lemon; 1 oz tartaric acid

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Red Currant Syrup

Ingredients

3 lbs sugar
a pinch of cream of tartar
equal parts of extract of vanilla, rose, almond, and lemon
1 oz tartaric acid

Directions

In a pan, combine sugar and cream of tartar.
Heat the mixture, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Remove from heat and add equal parts of vanilla, rose, almond, and lemon extracts.
Stir in 1 oz of tartaric acid.

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.

Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,465 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, vanilla, rose, almond):

Raspberryfits better
Figfits better
Strawberryfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, vanilla, rose, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.