Name: Candied Angelica
Ingredients: Angelica sticks; Emerald Green food coloring; Sugar for syrup

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Candied Angelica

Ingredients

Angelica sticks
Emerald Green food coloring
Sugar for syrup

Directions

Blanch the angelica sticks in boiling water with Emerald Green to maintain color.
Cool the sticks in cold running water.
Place the sticks upright in a tall jar or tin can.
Pour hot boiling syrup over the sticks.
Drain the syrup after three hours, then reboil it.
Pour the reboiled syrup over the sticks again.
Twelve hours later, drain and reboil the syrup again.
Repeat this process every three days until the syrup reaches 26° Beaume.
Then, increase the syrup temperature by 2° every five days until 30° Beaume is reached.

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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Angelica + syruptop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together111 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Angelica + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together487 recipes

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