Name: Pistachio Cream Ice
Ingredients: 1½ pints custard (No. 2); ¼ pound pistachio kernels; 2 tablespoons orange flower water; 1 tablespoon noyau or vanilla; green food coloring (optional)

Why it works: Orange and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,371 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pistachio Cream Ice

Ingredients

1½ pints custard (No. 2)
¼ pound pistachio kernels
2 tablespoons orange flower water
1 tablespoon noyau or vanilla
green food coloring (optional)

Directions

Blanch and chop the pistachio kernels.
Pound the kernels with orange flower water, adding it gradually.
Mix the pistachio mixture with the custard.
Flavor with noyau or vanilla and add green coloring if desired.

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 + vanillatop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,371 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Pistachio + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together407 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pistachio + orangetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).