Spices in French cooking

Near-universal. Pepper's pungency cuts pork fat and its resinous aroma sits alongside the meat without masking it. Freshly cracked on a chop or in a crust, it is doing real work rather than reflex seasoning.

Add alongside: Fennel seed, Salt

Mustard's sharpness cuts pork fat directly. Its pungency develops only when the crushed seed meets moisture, so it behaves quite differently from a dry aromatic spice.

Add alongside: Black pepper, Thyme

The definitive beef spice in European cooking, to the point that steak au poivre is built on nothing else. Beef has enough flavour of its own to argue with most spices; pepper's pungency sits alongside it rather than covering it.

How: Coarsely cracked into a steak crust; Ground over at the table

Add alongside: Salt, Mustard seed

• Pre-ground pepper contributes heat but no aroma; on a steak crust the difference is very obvious.

Bouillabaisse, zarzuela and countless Mediterranean fish stews depend on it. White fish is delicate enough that saffron reads clearly, and saffron's slight bitterness balances the sweetness of the fish.

Add alongside: Tomato, Garlic, Orange

The long braise is where bay earns its place, and beef is what is usually in it — Greek stifado, French daube, British stew. Hours of gentle extraction is exactly the treatment bay wants, and it lifts the heavy savoury background without ever announcing itself.

How: One or two whole leaves added at the start of the braise and removed before serving

Add alongside: Black pepper, Onion, Cinnamon (Ceylon)

• Remove the leaves before serving. They stay stiff and sharp-edged however long the braise runs.

Court-bouillon and Mediterranean fish stews are built on it. Fish cooks too fast to take a long infusion, so the bay goes into the liquid first and the fish goes in after — one of the few cases where the aromatic and the main ingredient are never cooked together.

How: Simmered in the poaching liquid before the fish is added

Add alongside: Black pepper, Lemon, Parsley

The two things in almost every stock in European cooking, and the pair a cook reaches for without thinking. Peppercorns give a slow warmth and bay a resinous length; neither is identifiable in the finished liquid and both are missed if left out.

Add alongside: Onion, Thyme

The Chinese answer, and a good one: white pepper's sharpness cuts prawn sweetness without adding the woody aroma black pepper would. It is also invisible, which matters in a pale dish where black flecks read as grit.

Add alongside: Ginger, Garlic, Sesame seed

A genuine tradition rather than a garnish: Havarti, Munster, Leyden and a number of Dutch and central European cheeses carry caraway through the paste. The sharpness cuts the fat and the seed gives something to bite.

Add alongside: Rice, Black pepper, Apple

The unwritten rule of European cooking: wherever cheese meets a white sauce — gratin, soufflé, mornay, croque monsieur — there is nutmeg. It lifts dairy fat, which otherwise flattens on the palate, and at the right quantity nobody identifies it.

Add alongside: White pepper, Bay leaf, Spinach

• A rasp, not a spoonful. Nutmeg is one of the few spices where the correct amount is one the eater cannot name.

Mushrooms arrive savoury, so what they want is contrast rather than depth. Black pepper supplies pungency and a resinous top note without adding another layer of the same thing — which is why the pairing is nearly universal and why heavier spicing muddies mushrooms.

Add alongside: Garlic, Thyme, Nutmeg

Specifically for mushrooms in cream — duxelles, mushroom soup, a mushroom gratin. The same principle as nutmeg with dairy generally: it lifts the fat. Against grilled or fried mushrooms with no cream it has much less to do.

Add alongside: Black pepper, Thyme, Garlic

• A rasp only, and only where there is dairy. On a dry-fried mushroom it reads as odd.

Both traditions that spice eggs with pepper choose white over black — French for the appearance of a pale scramble, Chinese for the clean sharpness in an egg drop soup. In a dish this pale, black pepper reads as burnt specks.

Add alongside: Nutmeg, Parsley, Sesame seed

The backbone of European sweet spicing and of every mixed-spice blend in this dataset. Cinnamon is aromatic and lengthening, nutmeg is richer and more resinous, and nutmeg is used at a fraction of the quantity — which is the part people get wrong when combining them from scratch.

How: Roughly four parts cinnamon to one part nutmeg

Add alongside: Cloves, Ginger, Allspice

• Nutmeg is much stronger than its reputation suggests and turns soapy in quantity. Equal parts is not a blend, it is a nutmeg dish.

Used together in some Mediterranean baking and charcuterie, where they reinforce rather than complement — both are anethole spices, so the combination is a matter of degree rather than of contrast. Worth knowing before adding both to the same dish expecting complexity.

Add alongside: Black pepper, Coriander seed, Orange

• These are not a contrast pair. Using both mostly makes the dish more anise-flavoured, not more interesting.

Old enough to be invisible: vanilla has been added to chocolate since chocolate was a drink, and most commercial dark chocolate already contains it. It rounds the bitterness rather than sweetening it, which is why chocolate without it tastes sharper rather than less sweet.

Add alongside: Cassia, Cayenne pepper, Coffee

Mulled wine, poached fruit, Middle Eastern desserts and Christmas baking all reach for it. Orange is sharply aromatic and cassia is warm and slightly sweet, and the pair is old enough in European cooking to read as a season rather than a flavour.

Add alongside: Cloves, Star anise, Green cardamom

Coriander seed is citric in its own right, so it amplifies orange rather than contrasting with it. Useful in marinades and cures where the orange would otherwise fade during cooking.

Add alongside: Fennel seed, Black pepper, Cumin

Mustard with cheese is near-universal in British and French cooking — in a rarebit, a cheese sauce, a croque monsieur — and the reason is that mustard's pungency cuts fat directly. Whole seed gives texture where prepared mustard would give only heat.

Add alongside: Black pepper, Nutmeg, Rice

Vanilla rounds apple's acidity without sweetening it, which is a different job from the one cinnamon does — cinnamon adds warmth, vanilla adds body. Using both is common and they are not substitutes for one another.

Add alongside: Cassia, Nutmeg, Sugar

Coffee is bitter and aromatic, vanilla is broad and sweet-smelling without being sweet, and the combination is old enough in European and American drinking to be invisible. It softens the bitterness rather than masking it.

Add alongside: Cassia, Green cardamom, Dark chocolate

A Mediterranean pairing that runs from Provençal fish stews to Turkish and Greek cooking, and it is the same logic as fennel with fish: anethole is clean and sweet enough to lift a delicate fillet without burying it. Aniseed is the more delicate of the two and needs a lighter hand.

Add alongside: Fennel seed, Lemon, Saffron

Only where there is dairy — lasagne, cannelloni, anything with béchamel — and there it is near-universal in Italian practice. On a tomato sauce it reads as an error.

Add alongside: Cheese, Black pepper, Spinach

• A rasp, and only with dairy. Nutmeg in a tomato sauce is out of place.

The spice soup was made for. Bay wants long wet extraction and gives length rather than a flavour of its own, which is exactly what a broth needs and exactly why nobody can taste it when it is there.

How: Added whole at the start, removed before serving

Add alongside: Black pepper, Onion, Thyme

Two traditions choose it for opposite reasons and both are right. French practice uses it in pale soups so no black specks show; Chinese practice uses it in hot and sour soup for the sharpness itself. Either way it survives a long simmer, which a delicate ground spice does not.

Add alongside: Nutmeg, Bay leaf, Ginger

The constraint with turkey is not which spice but where it goes. A rub on the outside of a whole bird seasons the skin and nothing beneath it, so pepper belongs in a butter worked under the skin, or in a brine, where it can reach the meat over hours.

How: Worked into a butter under the skin, or dissolved into a brine

Add alongside: Thyme, Bay leaf, Salt

The traditional British choice for poultry forcemeat and stuffing, and a better one than nutmeg here — mace is lighter and more peppery, and it does not darken a pale stuffing the way grated nutmeg does.

Add alongside: Black pepper, Thyme, Onion

The two spices in a béchamel, and both are there for the same reason — they season a pale sauce without showing in it. Nutmeg lifts the dairy fat and white pepper supplies the sharpness; black pepper would do the second job and ruin the first.

Add alongside: Cheese, Bay leaf, Spinach

A quieter alternative to cinnamon with cooked apple, and a common one across Mediterranean baking. Aniseed reads as sweet without contributing sugar, so it lifts the fruit where cinnamon would warm it — a different correction to the same flatness.

Add alongside: Cassia, Fennel seed, Honey

Mediterranean charcuterie and roast pork both use it, for the same reason fennel does: pork fat is rich and slightly sweet, and an anethole spice cuts it without the sharpness a pepper would bring.

Add alongside: Fennel seed, Black pepper, Garlic

A long-established European convention. Nutmeg's sweet warmth offsets spinach's mineral, slightly metallic edge, and the pairing extends to creamed spinach and to spinach in dairy-based dishes generally.

How: Grated fresh over creamed spinach at the end

Add alongside: Cheese, Black pepper

• A few strokes of a grater. Nutmeg becomes cloying quickly.

One of the most established sweet pairings in Western baking. Apple's acidity and cassia's assertive sweet-hot character balance, and cassia specifically — rather than Ceylon cinnamon — is what most people expect to taste.

Add alongside: Nutmeg, Cloves, Ginger

From the same fruit, and they layer rather than duplicate: mace supplies a lighter peppery top and nutmeg a sweeter, denser base. Using both is common in garam masala and in classical European charcuterie.

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Black pepper

• Both carry myristicin and both are powerful; using both is not a reason to double the total quantity.

The studded ham is the fixed form of this pairing across northern Europe and North America, and it works because pork fat carries eugenol readily while pork’s own sweetness meets clove’s. The whole buds also sit on the surface where their strength is moderated by distance from the meat, which is doing more of the work than it appears.

How: Whole cloves studded into the fat of a baked ham; A few cloves in a brine or a braising liquid

Add alongside: Orange, Black pepper, Honey

• Ground clove in a pork dish behaves nothing like whole cloves studded on the surface, and the quantity that works for one will ruin the other.
• Lean cuts have less fat to carry and moderate the eugenol, so they take clove less well than belly, shoulder or a cured leg.

A fixture of northern European baking and preserving. Apple is acidic and sweet with a light aroma, and clove supplies depth it cannot generate on its own; the acidity also stops the combination reading as cloying.

How: Whole cloves in a poaching or stewing liquid, removed before serving; A small quantity of ground clove in a pie spice

Add alongside: Cinnamon (Ceylon), Nutmeg

• Apple carries far less clove than a ham does. One or two whole cloves in a pan of fruit is usually the whole allowance.

Orange brings acidity and bright terpene aromatics; star anise brings sweet resinous depth underneath them. The combination appears in braises, syrups, mulled drinks and desserts, and works in both savoury and sweet directions because neither element is committed to one.

Add alongside: Cassia, Cloves, Fennel seed

• Both are assertive. Used at equal strength they compete rather than combine, and star anise is usually the one to hold back.

Salmon is oily and distinctly flavoured, and fennel’s sweetness with its faint cooling quality cuts against that richness rather than sitting on top of it. The affinity extends to the fennel bulb and fronds, which are a standard accompaniment to the same fish.

How: Toasted and coarsely crushed into a rub before roasting or grilling; Whole seeds in a cure alongside dill and sugar

Add alongside: Dill, Black pepper, Lemon

• Ground fennel goes muddy against salmon; the coarse crush is doing textural work as well as aromatic work.

Carrot is sweet and earthy with little acidity of its own, and ginger supplies both the sharpness and the aromatic lift it lacks. The combination works hot in soups and raw in salads and dressings, which is unusual — most spice pairings favour one or the other.

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Cumin, Orange

• Easy to overdo in a purée, where there is nothing to hide behind and the ginger becomes the only flavour.

The warm sweet backbone of Chinese braised duck, and the reason duck takes to fruit so well — cassia bridges the meat and the orange or plum it is so often cooked with. Ceylon cinnamon is too delicate for a braise this long and disappears.

How: In a red-braising liquid; With orange in a French-style duck

Add alongside: Star anise, Orange, Cloves

The European counterpart to the Chinese approach, and the same logic: a resinous, faintly bitter berry against a rich fatty bird. It appears in French and central European duck and game cooking and in the cures for preserved duck.

How: Crushed into a dry cure for confit; In a braise with bay and thyme

Add alongside: Bay leaf, Black pepper, Thyme

Duck is dark and mineral enough to take pepper at a level chicken cannot, and cracked pepper on a scored duck breast is close to a default. The piperine reads as warmth against the fat rather than as sharpness.

How: Cracked over a scored breast before searing; In a pepper sauce for duck

Add alongside: Salt, Juniper, Star anise

A crust of coarsely cracked pepper on a seared tuna steak is a standard preparation, and it works because tuna is dense and meaty enough to carry a treatment that would overwhelm a flaking white fish. The pepper toasts in the pan and the interior stays raw, which is the whole point of the dish.

How: Pressed as a crust onto a steak before searing; With salt and lemon on grilled tuna

Add alongside: Salt, Sesame seed, Lemon

• Use coarsely cracked rather than finely ground — fine pepper burns in the short hard sear tuna needs.

Toasted and cracked coriander gives tuna a citric lift without adding liquid, which matters for a fish usually cooked hot and fast. It suits the seared preparation particularly, where a wet marinade would prevent a crust forming.

How: Cracked with pepper into a crust; In a dry spice mix for grilled tuna

Add alongside: Black pepper, Fennel seed, Lemon

Courgette is close to flavourless and mostly water, so what it needs is not a strong spice but a sharpening one. Pepper does that without competing, and it is why so many courgette dishes are simply courgette, oil, salt and a great deal of pepper.

How: Cracked over griddled slices; In a courgette and cheese fritter

Add alongside: Salt, Mint, Cheese

Lemon and poppy seed is one of the most established pairings in Western baking, and it is a textural partnership as much as a flavour one — the seed contributes crunch and a nutty background against which the lemon reads brighter. Neither dominates, which is unusual for a pairing this well known.

How: In a lemon and poppy seed loaf or muffin; In a glaze or drizzle over a citrus cake

Add alongside: Sugar, Cheese, Green cardamom

• Check the seed is fresh before committing it to a cake — rancid poppy seed makes the whole bake bitter and cannot be corrected afterwards.

A central European habit — poppy seed on and in cheese pastries, and with soft cheese fillings in strudel and kolache. The seed is used ground here, cooked with sugar and dairy into a filling rather than scattered.

How: In a sweet cheese and poppy seed strudel filling; Scattered on cheese pastries before baking

Add alongside: Sugar, Lemon, Cassia

The pairing that made the spice fashionable, and it holds up. Salmon is oily, pink and mildly sweet, and pink peppercorns give a resinous citric lift and a visible colour echo without adding heat that would fight the fish.

How: Crushed over seared or cured salmon; In a gravlax cure with dill and citrus

Add alongside: Dill, Lemon, Juniper

• Crush by hand and add at the end — cooked into a dish they contribute almost nothing.

Soft and goat cheeses are lactic, tangy and pale, and pink peppercorns supply sweetness, resin and colour against all three. The pairing is as much visual as culinary and is none the worse for it.

How: Crushed over a soft goat cheese with honey; Pressed onto a fresh cheese as a coating

Add alongside: Honey, Thyme, Lemon

Recorded for fruit desserts generally rather than apple specifically. Pink peppercorns are sweet and resinous rather than pungent, which puts them in the unusual position of working in a dessert — with strawberry, citrus and chocolate as much as with orchard fruit — where any true pepper would read as a stunt.

How: Crushed over macerated strawberries; In a syrup for poached fruit

Add alongside: Sugar, Vanilla, Orange

• Recorded as editorial judgement rather than documented tradition: the pairing is well established in contemporary restaurant cooking and has no long tradition behind it.

Structural across central and northern Europe rather than optional. Sauerkraut without caraway is recognisably a different thing, and the same holds for braised red cabbage and most of the cabbage dishes of the region. The sharp carvone note meets the sulphurous edge of cooked cabbage instead of being buried by it, which very few spices manage.

How: Whole seed in a pot of sauerkraut; With apple and vinegar in braised red cabbage

Add alongside: Juniper, Black pepper, Bay leaf

Central European charcuterie and roast pork both run on it. Pork is fatty and mild and juniper is resinous and bitter, and the bitterness cuts the fat while the pine gives the meat something to taste of — which is why it appears in cures as reliably as in braises.

How: Crushed into a dry cure for belly or loin; In a braise with bay and black pepper

Add alongside: Bay leaf, Black pepper, Thyme

• Four to six crushed berries season a dish for four; juniper has a narrow useful range and doubling it reads as medicinal.

Sauerkraut and choucroute, where juniper is close to definitional. Fermented cabbage is sour, sulphurous and assertive, and juniper is one of very few spices that meets it rather than being buried by it.

How: Whole berries in a pot of sauerkraut; In braised red cabbage with apple

Add alongside: Caraway, Bay leaf, Black pepper

Recorded for red meat and game generally, which is juniper’s home ground. Strongly flavoured dark meat carries the resin and the bitterness that would overwhelm chicken or fish, and a long braise gives the berries time to release without turning harsh.

How: In a red wine braise; Crushed into a cure or a marinade for venison

Add alongside: Black pepper, Bay leaf, Allspice

Long pepper does what black pepper does on red meat and adds a sweetness that suits a braise particularly well. Its aromatics survive long cooking where black pepper’s dull, so a whole spike simmered in a stew keeps giving.

How: A whole spike simmered in a red wine braise; Grated into a dry rub for steak

Add alongside: Black pepper, Juniper, Bay leaf

An unusual pairing for a pepper and a natural one for this pepper. Long pepper’s warm cinnamon-like sweetness sits with dark chocolate in a way black pepper’s bare pungency does not, and the heat arrives late enough to read as warmth rather than as a stunt.

How: Grated over a chocolate dessert; Infused into a ganache or a syrup

Add alongside: Cinnamon (Ceylon), Vanilla, Green cardamom

• Recorded as editorial judgement rather than documented tradition: it is established in contemporary restaurant cooking and has no long history behind it.

Recorded for poached and cooked fruit generally. Long pepper is sweet enough to belong in a syrup, and its slow warmth against soft cooked fruit is the same logic that puts black pepper on strawberries — with rather more to work with.

How: A spike infused into a poaching syrup; Grated over roasted fruit

Add alongside: Cinnamon (Ceylon), Star anise, Vanilla

Lamb is fatty and strongly flavoured and takes a pungent spice generously. Grains of paradise gives the peppery bite lamb wants and adds a floral warmth that suits it better than plain pepper — the same logic that makes cardamom work with lamb across North Africa and South Asia, with the heat built in.

How: Ground into a rub for roast or grilled lamb; Crushed over lamb chops before serving

Add alongside: Black pepper, Cumin, Coriander seed

Sweet potato is sweet and dense and needs something warm and pungent rather than merely hot. The floral citric side of grains of paradise cuts the sugar where black pepper would only sharpen it.

How: Ground over roast sweet potato wedges; In a rub with cumin and paprika

Add alongside: Paprika, Cumin, Ginger

Where black pepper can sit heavily on delicate fish, grains of paradise has a faster, cleaner finish and a citric lift that behaves more like a squeeze of lemon. It is one of the few pungent spices that suits white fish without dominating it.

How: Ground over grilled or baked fish at the table; In a light rub with lemon zest

Add alongside: Lemon, Fennel seed, Parsley

• Grind it fresh — the floral note that makes it work here is the first thing an old jar loses.

Both are savoury in the same direction, which is unusual for a pairing that works — most good pairings contrast. Mushrooms carry glutamates and garlic carries sulphur compounds that read as depth once cooked, and together they give a dish more savouriness than the sum of the two. It is why a mushroom dish without garlic tastes underseasoned even when it is not.

How: Added after the mushrooms have released and reabsorbed their water; With butter and parsley as a finish

Add alongside: Thyme, Parsley, Black pepper

• Added too early, the garlic burns while the mushrooms are still giving up water.

The standing partnership of braised beef across most of Europe and much of South Asia, and onion is doing two jobs rather than one. It seasons, and it also supplies the sugars that brown alongside the meat and the body that thickens the liquid as it breaks down. A beef stew made without onion is thinner in texture as well as in flavour, which is why the omission is so noticeable.

How: Sliced and browned deeply before the beef goes in; In quantity, cooked to a soft base for a curry or a daube

Add alongside: Thyme, Black pepper, Bay leaf

• Browning onions properly takes far longer than most recipes claim. Rushing it gives sharpness where the dish wanted sweetness.

Lentils are earthy and almost sweet and have very little aromatic character of their own, so they take a savoury base readily. Fried onion is the standard one from France to Bengal — in a dal it is often the finishing tarka as well as the base, and browned onion over rice and lentils is a dish in itself in Egypt and the Levant.

How: Browned and stirred through cooked lentils as a finish; Crisp-fried as a garnish over rice and lentils

Add alongside: Cumin, Asafoetida, Turmeric

The defining pairing in both British and Central European cooking, arrived at independently in each. Beef is rich and mild and rewards something sharp against it, and horseradish supplies pungency without acidity or sweetness — unlike mustard, which brings its own flavour, or a pickle, which brings vinegar. Roast beef in England, boiled beef in Austria, and the same reasoning behind both.

How: Creamed sauce alongside roast beef; Freshly grated with Tafelspitz and boiled beef; Whipped into cream with a little vinegar and mustard

Add alongside: Mustard seed, Black pepper

• Never cooked into the gravy. Heat destroys the pungency and leaves a faint cabbage note in a sauce that should have been sharp.

A Central and Eastern European staple combination, and a useful one because potato is bland, absorbent and starchy — it takes as much pungency as is given and softens the bitterness of the root at the same time. The two are also seasonal partners: both are winter keepers, which is how the pairing arose.

How: Grated through a warm potato salad with soured cream; Folded into mash to serve with beef or sausage

Add alongside: Dill, Onion

• Add it once the potatoes are off the heat. Stirred into a hot mash over the flame it will lose most of its bite.

The most established pairing in Western cooking and one of the few in this dataset that is a convention rather than a mechanism. They do unrelated things — salt supplies a basic taste and suppresses bitterness, pepper supplies pungency and a resinous aroma — and the pairing endures because between them they cover seasoning and interest with two ingredients. The convention is strong enough that "seasoning" means these two by default on a European menu.

How: Ground together over finished food at the table; As the base of nearly every Western dry seasoning

Add alongside: Garlic, Thyme

• Pre-mixed salt and pepper in a single grinder is a compromise: pepper is worth grinding fresh and salt gains nothing from it, so they are better kept apart.

Steak au poivre vert is the documented case and it demonstrates the point of green pepper. Beef is rich and assertive and takes pepper well, but the quantity of black pepper needed to register in a cream sauce brings a roasted bitterness with it; green corns deliver the same piperine bite with a fresh herbal brightness and no bitterness at all, so they can go in by the spoonful and burst in the sauce.

How: Crushed into a cream and brandy pan sauce for steak; Whole in a peppercorn sauce, added near the end

Add alongside: Cheese, Mustard seed, Onion

• Brined corns bring salt and acid with them, so taste the sauce before adding any more of either.

Duck is fatty and strongly flavoured and wants something sharp against it that is not simply acidic. Green peppercorns give a clean pungency and a fresh green note that cuts the fat without the sweetness a fruit sauce would bring — which is why the French repertoire pairs them with duck and game as readily as with beef.

How: In a pan sauce for duck breast, crushed and added off the heat; In a terrine or pâté, whole and visible

Add alongside: Juniper, Bay leaf, Orange

• Long simmering keeps the pungency and loses the fresh note, so the corns go in near the end.

A lean, delicate fish is exactly where black pepper is too heavy — its roasted, woody depth sits on top of the fish rather than beside it. Green pepper is milder and brighter and adds pungency without weight, which makes it one of the few peppers that suits white fish in any quantity.

How: Crushed into a butter or cream sauce for poached fish; Whole corns in a Thai stir-fry with fish

Add alongside: Dill, Lemon, Lemongrass

The defining Basque use and the clearest illustration of what this chilli is for. Piperade is eggs with peppers, onion and Espelette, and the chilli is seasoning the eggs the way black pepper would elsewhere in France — visible as flecks, warming rather than hot. Eggs are bland and fatty enough to carry a mild fruity chilli without any of it being lost.

How: Piperade; Dusted over fried or scrambled eggs; In an omelette

Add alongside: Paprika, Garlic, Black pepper

Espelette goes into the cure for Bayonne ham, which is the largest single use of the appellation and ties the chilli to the region’s other protected product. Pork fat carries the fruitiness well, and the mild heat cuts richness without competing with the cure.

How: In the cure for Bayonne ham; On roast and grilled pork

Add alongside: Black pepper, Thyme, Garlic

Basque coastal cooking pairs the chilli with tuna in marmitako and with grilled fish generally. A mild fruity chilli seasons oily fish without the heat that would fight it, and the visible red against pale fish is part of the presentation.

How: Marmitako; Dusted over grilled or seared tuna

Add alongside: Paprika, Bay leaf, Garlic

Cream cheese and fresh dairy desserts take tonka well for the same reason cream does: the aroma is fat-soluble and diffuses evenly, and the hay-like sweetness reads as an intensified vanilla against a mild dairy background. Recorded for fresh dairy rather than for aged cheese, where it does not belong.

How: In cheesecake and fresh-cheese desserts; Grated over cream desserts

Add alongside: Vanilla, Green cardamom

• A few passes on a rasp is enough. Too much tonka turns soapy and bitter and cannot be corrected.

The pairing that carried tonka into restaurant pastry. Chocolate is bitter and fat-rich, which suits an aroma that is intense, sweet and fat-soluble, and the almond-and-hay character reads as a more complex vanilla against it. Both survive baking, which vanilla-adjacent aromatics often do not.

How: Infused into a chocolate ganache; Grated over a chocolate dessert

Add alongside: Vanilla, Coffee

Poached pear is a standing European pastry use. Pear is mild, sweet and watery, which leaves room for an aroma this intense to be the dominant flavour rather than a background one, and the hay-and-almond character suits orchard fruit in a way it does not suit citrus.

How: Infused into a poaching syrup for pears; Grated over a pear tart

Add alongside: Vanilla, Star anise