Name: Apple-pie
Ingredients: Porter apples (or other cooking apples); ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2-4 tablespoons sugar (to taste); 2 tablespoons water (if using apples other than Porter); 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg or the grated rind of 1/2 lemon; Optional: cinnamon or other spices

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple-pie

Ingredients

Porter apples (or other cooking apples)
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
2-4 tablespoons sugar (to taste)
2 tablespoons water (if using apples other than Porter)
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg or the grated rind of 1/2 lemon
Optional: cinnamon or other spices

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Line a pie plate with crust.

Fill and bake

Layer pared, quartered, and cored apples in the crust.
Sprinkle with salt and sugar according to the apples' acidity.
Add water if using apples other than Porter, and mix in nutmeg or lemon rind.
Cover the pie and bake until the apples are tender.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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: Provide the bulk of the filling, softening during baking to form the pie's body.
Sugar: Adds sweetness, balanced against the apples' acidity.
Nutmeg or lemon rind: Adds aroma to the filling.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.