Name: Apricot Pies
Ingredients: 1 pound dark red dried apricots; ½ cup sugar; 1 tablespoon cornstarch; 2 tablespoons warm water; 3 egg yolks

Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apricot Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the apricots with boiling water and soak for ½ day in a fireless cooker, but do not boil.
Add the sugar and bring to a boil, then cool and strain through a colander.
Return the mixture to the heat and add the cornstarch dissolved in warm water.
Stir in the beaten egg yolks until the mixture is as thick as whipped cream.

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.

Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,712 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).