Name: Apricots Preserved Whole
Ingredients: Apricots (not quite ripe); Water (for blanching); Sugar (for syrup)

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apricots Preserved Whole

Ingredients

Apricots (not quite ripe)
Water (for blanching)
Sugar (for syrup)

Directions

Slit the apricots down the middle on one side and remove the stones.
Blanch the apricots in boiling water until they rise to the top.
Carefully lift them out with a ladle and place them in cold water immediately.
Drain the apricots on a sieve and pack them on a pan for syruping.
Prepare a syrup and pour it over the apricots while hot.
Let the apricots stand in the syrup for three days.
Drain off the syrup, add more sugar, boil it again, and pour it over the apricots while boiling.
Repeat this process after two or three days.
Optionally, crack the stones, blanch the kernels, and place them back in the apricots before finishing.

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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).