Name: Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients: 1 cup pumpkin, sifted; ½ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ginger; 2 eggs, beaten; milk, enough for one common sized pie; 1 cup molasses (optional)

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the sifted pumpkin, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.
Add the beaten eggs and enough milk to create a mixture suitable for a pie.
If desired, stir in molasses when the pumpkin mixture is almost cooked.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,158 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cinnamon + milktop 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).

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

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, ginger, egg, milk, molasses):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, ginger, egg, milk, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.