Name: Sweet Puddings
Ingredients: pounded ginger; flour; essential oil of saffron

Why it works: Ginger and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 418 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Puddings

Ingredients

pounded ginger
flour
essential oil of saffron

Directions

Mix pounded ginger with flour.
Place the mixture into a floured cloth and tie it tightly, leaving room for expansion.
Boil the cloth in water for nearly 3 hours without interruption.
Add a few drops of essential oil of saffron for flavor.

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.

Ginger + saffrontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together418 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + saffrontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together447 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).