Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Jelly, Meat Used in Stock for
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the bones from the stewed feet and cut the meat into neat pieces.
Season the meat with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and a little pounded mace.
Press the seasoned meat into a mold.
Pour a little jelly over the meat.
When cold, turn out the dish from the mold and garnish as desired.
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.
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,777 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Meat + macetop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,339 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Rosemaryfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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