Name: Squash Pie
Ingredients: 1 small cup of stewed and strained squash; 1 large cup of boiling milk; 1 tablespoon of powdered cracker; ¼ cup of sugar; ½ teaspoon of salt; ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon; a slight grating of nutmeg

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Squash Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

Mix the seasonings and cracker with the squash.
Pour the boiling milk over the mixture and let it stand until it cools.

Bake

Pour into a deep pie plate lined with pastry.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Squash: Forms the bulk of the filling and supplies moisture and body.
Milk: Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling set as it cools and bakes.
Powdered cracker: Absorbs liquid and thickens the filling so it holds its shape.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the squash.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.