Name: Riband Blancmange
Ingredients: Blancmange (amount as needed); Cochineal (for rose color); Boiled chocolate (for chocolate color); Spinach juice (for green color); Saffron or egg yolk (for yellow color); Oil (for greasing the mould)

Why it works: Spinach and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Riband Blancmange

Ingredients

Blancmange (amount as needed)
Cochineal (for rose color)
Boiled chocolate (for chocolate color)
Spinach juice (for green color)
Saffron or egg yolk (for yellow color)
Oil (for greasing the mould)

Directions

Prepare enough blancmange to fill your moulds.
Divide the blancmange into portions for different colors.
Pour an inch of blancmange into an oiled mould and let it cool and firm.
Once firm, pour in a different color to the same depth and let it firm.
Repeat until the mould is full, allowing each layer to firm before adding the next.
Store the mould in a cold place until ready to serve.
Carefully turn out the blancmange when serving.

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.

Spinach + saffrontop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together149 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Rose + saffrontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together78 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Rose + chocolatetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together149 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Chocolate + spinachtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together69 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Rose + spinachtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).