Name: Stuffed Prunes
Ingredients: large prunes; ½ date, chopped; chopped walnut meat; 2 teaspoons powdered sugar; granulated sugar

Why it works: Date and walnut work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 322 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stuffed Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak large prunes in cold water until soft enough to pit.
Slit each prune on one side and remove the pit.

Fill and coat

Fill each prune with chopped date, chopped walnut meat, and powdered sugar.
Press into shape and roll in granulated sugar.

Ripen

Store for a week to ripen.

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.

Date + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Date + sugartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,147 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Date + meattop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together65 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes: Soft fruit shell that holds the filling and provides the main sweetness.
Date: Adds moist, sweet body to the filling.
Walnut meat: Adds crunch and a slightly bitter, nutty contrast to the soft filling.
Powdered sugar: Dissolves into the filling, sweetening it evenly without a gritty texture.