Name: Date Tart
Ingredients: 1 pound dates; 1 quart milk; 3 eggs

Why it works: Dates and milk work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Date Tart

Ingredients

1 pound dates
1 quart milk
3 eggs

Directions

Soak the dates overnight.
Stew the soaked dates until soft, then mash them through a sieve.
Mix the mashed dates with the milk and eggs.

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.

Dates + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).