Name: Date Pudding
Ingredients: 5 eggs; 4 oz. bread crumbs; 1 tomato; a little chopped parsley; 3 tablespoons white sauce; seasoning

Why it works: Tomato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,398 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Boil 3 eggs hard, then chop them.
Mix the chopped eggs with bread crumbs, mashed tomato, chopped parsley, white sauce, and the raw yolks of 2 eggs.
Put the mixture into buttered moulds, cover with buttered paper, and steam for 20 minutes.

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.

Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).