Name: Little Nougat Baskets a LA Durek
Ingredients: Nougat paste; Boiled sugar; Royal icing; Finely shredded pistachio nuts; Colored garnishing cream; Fruits (strawberries, cherries, etc.)

Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Little Nougat Baskets a LA Durek

Ingredients

Directions

Oil some fluted basket molds and line them thinly with nougat paste.
Once cool, turn the nougats out and stick the two parts of the baskets together with a little boiled sugar.
Mask the bottom part of the basket with royal icing and sprinkle with finely shredded pistachio nuts.
Fill the inside of the baskets using a piping bag with colored garnishing cream.
Garnish with fruits that have been dipped in boiling sugar and allowed to cool.
Serve on a dish paper as a sweet for dinner or any cold collation.

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.

Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Pistachio + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together634 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together886 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,233 recipes

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