Name: Rose Lip-salve
Ingredients: 8 ounces olive oil; 2 ounces alkanet-root; 3 ounces white wax; 3 ounces clean mutton suet; 40 drops oil of rhodium or lavender

Why it works: Olive and mutton work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 379 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rose Lip-salve

Ingredients

Directions

Pour 8 ounces of olive oil into a wide-mouthed bottle.
Add 2 ounces of alkanet-root and seal the bottle.
Place the bottle in the sun and shake it often until the oil turns crimson.
Strain the oil to remove the roots.
In a pot, melt 3 ounces of white wax and 3 ounces of clean mutton suet over low heat.
Once melted, add 40 drops of oil of rhodium or lavender for fragrance.
Pour the mixture into small containers while still liquid.
Allow to cool and solidify.

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.

Olive + muttontop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + lavendertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together63 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Mutton + lavendertop 47% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).