Name: Peach Salad
Ingredients: 6 ripe peaches; ½ cup pounded sugar; 2-3 cups champagne (or other wine)

Why it works: Peach and champagne work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Peach Salad

Ingredients

6 ripe peaches
½ cup pounded sugar
2-3 cups champagne (or other wine)

Directions

Pare and slice the peaches.
Arrange the slices in a dish.
Strew the peaches with pounded sugar.
Pour champagne over the peaches.

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.

Peach + champagnetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + champagnetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together424 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches: Provide the fruit base, with flesh that softens and releases juice as it sits.
Pounded sugar: Sweetens the peaches and draws out their juices to form a syrup.
Champagne: Adds acidity and aroma, and loosens the syrup into a light, fragrant liquid.