Name: Plums, Stewed
Ingredients: Plums (black, ordinary, greengages, or any kind of stone fruit); Syrup (sugar and water)

Why it works: Syrup and sugar 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 ↓

Plums, Stewed

Ingredients

Plums (black, ordinary, greengages, or any kind of stone fruit)
Syrup (sugar and water)

Directions

Remove the stones from the plums and crack them to add the kernels to the fruit.
Prepare a syrup by dissolving sugar in water.
Stew the plums in the syrup until tender, but do not let them break.
Serve cold for a better 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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,313 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Plum + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).