Name: Modern Cookery
Ingredients: apricot syrup; plums (such as mussel or imperatrice)

Why it works: Apricot and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

apricot syrup
plums (such as mussel or imperatrice)

Directions

Scald the plums in apricot syrup when partially dried.
Let them sit in the syrup for two weeks.
Drain the plums and dry them as usual.

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 + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + plumtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).