Name: Stewed Pears
Ingredients: 12 large baking pears; ½ pound white sugar; cold water (enough to cover pears); pear peelings (from the pears); a few cloves; a little cochineal (tied in a muslin bag)

Why it works: Pear and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Pears

Ingredients

12 large baking pears
½ pound white sugar
cold water (enough to cover pears)
pear peelings (from the pears)
a few cloves
a little cochineal (tied in a muslin bag)

Directions

Peel, core, and quarter the pears.
Place the pears in a stewpan and add the sugar.
Add enough cold water to cover the pears.
Add the pear peelings, cloves, and cochineal in a muslin bag.
Cover the stewpan and simmer gently until the pears are tender.

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.

Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together512 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together17,182 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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

Pears: Form the main body of the dish, softening into tender fruit as they simmer.
White sugar: Sweetens the syrup and adds body to the liquid the pears cook in.
Cloves: Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cooking syrup.