Name: Compote of Pomegranates
Ingredients: Pomegranates; Syrup; Orange juice or maraschino

Why it works: Pomegranate and orange work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 116 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Compote of Pomegranates

Ingredients

Pomegranates
Syrup
Orange juice or maraschino

Directions

Use a small knife to cut a circle, the size of a five-shilling piece, off the peel of the pomegranates.
Split down the sides of the skins and carefully remove the bright ruby seeds without bruising them.
Place the seeds into a serving dish.
Pour syrup flavored with orange juice or maraschino over the pomegranate seeds.

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.

Pomegranate + orangetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together116 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pomegranate + syruptop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + orangetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,179 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).