Name: Fruit Stuffing
Ingredients: 1 cup stale bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 1 cup tart apples, chopped; 1 teaspoon mixed powdered herbs (or poultry seasoning); 1 cup Sultana raisins or currants; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/2 cup mashed, boiled onions; 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fruit Stuffing

Ingredients

1 cup stale bread crumbs
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup tart apples, chopped
1 teaspoon mixed powdered herbs (or poultry seasoning)
1 cup Sultana raisins or currants
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mashed, boiled onions
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Ensure the Sultana raisins or currants are well cleaned and free of stems.
Mix all the ingredients together.
Use the mixture as a filling for duck, guinea hen, or goose.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,790 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 (bread, butter, apple, onion, pepper):

Plumfits better
Figfits better
Grapefits better
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, apple, onion, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.