Name: Fricassee of Calf's Head
Ingredients: remains of a calf's head; ½ cup cowheel gravy; 3 ounces lean ham, finely chopped; 1 small shallot, minced; 1 tablespoon ketchup; juice of 1 lemon; a pinch of cayenne pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricassee of Calf's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Place the meat in a clean saucepan with cowheel gravy and stew gently for 15 minutes.
Add the chopped ham, minced shallot, ketchup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper to the saucepan.
Pour half of the jelly into a well-oiled mold.
Layer the meat and half of the tongue in the mold, then pour the remaining jelly on top.
Allow it to set and serve.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together476 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ham + shallottop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).