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Recipe Lab Draft #1: Mexican Sweet Tamales Recipe

This is draft one for the CHOW Recipe Lab. Try it! Post your comments to this thread.While many Americans are familiar with savory tamales, the sweet ones are...

By chow · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Recipe Lab Draft #1: Mexican Sweet Tamales Recipe

About 35 tamales

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

968Calories
21 gProtein
36 gFat
147 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Pine1 oz (28g)191
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Corn1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By chow. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

  1. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + pinetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, raisin, flour, cinnamon, butter, sugar, pine):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, raisin, flour, cinnamon, butter, sugar, pine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.