Name: To Preserve Apples
Ingredients: 6 pounds good hard baking apples; 4 pounds loaf sugar; ½ pound best white ginger; ¼ pound bruised white ginger

Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Preserve Apples

Ingredients

6 pounds good hard baking apples
4 pounds loaf sugar
½ pound best white ginger
¼ pound bruised white ginger

Directions

Prepare

Pare, core, and quarter the apples.
Finely pound the loaf sugar.

Preserve

In a jar, layer the apples and sugar alternately with the white ginger.
Let it sit for 48 hours.
Infuse the bruised white ginger in a little boiling water for 24 hours.
Strain the liquid and boil it with the apples.

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.

Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,424 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Hard baking apples hold their shape and provide the fruit body of the preserve.
Loaf sugar: Sugar draws moisture out of the apples and preserves them while adding sweetness.
White ginger: Ginger adds a warm, aromatic spice that flavours the apples and the syrup.