Name: Compote of Pears a LA Zinoara
Ingredients: thick slices of pears; syrup; slices of oranges; angelica; damson cheese or currant jelly; Dantzic brandy

Why it works: Orange and angelica work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 159 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Compote of Pears a LA Zinoara

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the pear slices in syrup until tender.
Glaze the pears in their own syrup.
Prepare orange slices similarly to the Compote of Apples à la Cintra.
Layer the pears and oranges alternately in a three-tiered stack.
Decorate the orange pieces with angelica and the pear pieces with damson cheese or currant jelly.
Pour flavored syrup with Dantzic brandy around the base.

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.

Orange + angelicatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together159 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pear + orangetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together323 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pear + cheesetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together96 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
Pear + angelicatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together39 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pear + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together157 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, syrup, orange, cheese, brandy):

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerfits better
Clovefits better
Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, syrup, orange, cheese, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.