Name: Corn Muffins
Ingredients: 1 pint sifted cornmeal; 1 pint buttermilk; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 egg; 2 tablespoons water (optional); ½ teaspoon lard or butter (for each muffin pan)

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Corn Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk.
Pour the buttermilk mixture over the cornmeal.
Add the egg and beat the mixture for two minutes.
If the batter is too stiff, add 2 tablespoons of water.
Preheat muffin pans until hot, not warm.
Add ½ teaspoon of lard or butter to each muffin pan.
Pour the batter into the hot muffin pans.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
Turn the muffins with a fork if not served immediately to prevent sweating.

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.

Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,674 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,986 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).