Name: The Christmas Dinner
Ingredients: large raisins; suet; firm juicy apples (pippins or greenings); currants; citron; sugar; spices; wine; brandy

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

The Christmas Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Remove stems from the raisins, cut each in half, and take out the seeds.
Cook a solid chunk of beef round the day before.
Chop the cooked meat and clear the suet of strings and membranes.
Pare, slice, and mince the apples.
In a large bowl, mix the meat, suet, apples, small fruits, citron, sugar, and spices without bruising.
Finally, add wine and brandy to preserve the mixture.

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.

Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,207 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,291 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, currant, sugar, wine, brandy):

Plumfits better
Pearfits better
Apricotfits better
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, currant, sugar, wine, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.