Name: Canned Plums
Ingredients: 1 pint water; fine plums; sugar (for syrup)

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Canned Plums

Ingredients

1 pint water
fine plums
sugar (for syrup)

Directions

Select fine plums and prick each one.
Boil the water for five minutes.
Prepare a syrup by dissolving sugar in the boiling water.
Put the plums in a jar, pour in the hot syrup, and seal.

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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,313 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Plum + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).