Caraway is a spice with 219 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is 2-aminobenzaldehyde (a almond, cherry, marzipan note). It pairs most strongly with rye, sharing 168 flavor compounds. Caraway appears in 2,119 recipes, most commonly in world cuisine.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Caraway's inventory contains 43. Most of the other 176 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 31 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Caraway's 219 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
39 of 219 are distinctive to caraway — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in caraway — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Caraway and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Caraway side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
In this study, microorganisms isolated from black tea (BT) processing samples were added to BT fermentation, and the volatile profile and chemical characteristics of BT fermented b... Read abstract →
Traditional sun-dried merguez is an authentic Tunisian dried sausage made with a large number of spices and herbs, which was reformulated in this study with camel meat and hump fat... Read abstract →
BACKGROUND: Carum carvi (caraway) of the Apiaceae family has been used in many cultures as a cooking spice and part of the folk medicine. Previous reports primarily focus on the me... Read abstract →
The whole or ground seeds of the food ingredient Nigella sativa L., known in Western culture as "black cumin" or "black caraway", has a three-millennial history of use in Middle- a... Read abstract →
Field muskmelon seed oil was extracted by press extraction (PE), Soxhlet extraction (SE), organic extraction (OSE), and aqueous extraction (AE). The oils were then evaluated for th... Read abstract →