Name: Pistachio Ice Cream
Ingredients: 1 pint heavy cream; 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour; 1 cup granulated sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 large egg; 1 pint whole milk; 1 quart heavy cream, flavored with 1 tablespoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon almond extract; Bur- nett's Fruit Coloring (for color)

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 pint heavy cream
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 pint whole milk
1 quart heavy cream, flavored with 1 tablespoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon almond extract
Bur- nett's Fruit Coloring (for color)

Directions

Scald 1 pint of heavy cream in a saucepan.
In a bowl, mix 1 tablespoon flour, 1 cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 beaten egg.
Pour in 1 pint of milk and cook in a double boiler for 20 minutes, stirring often.
Cool the mixture, then add 1 quart of flavored cream.
Strain the mixture and freeze it.
Add just enough coloring to achieve a pretty green color.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla):

Almondthe original
Chestnutfits about as well
Hazelnutfits less well
Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.