Name: Crab-apple Jelly with Lemon
Ingredients: 1 pound crab-apples; 1 lemon

Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Crab-apple Jelly with Lemon

Ingredients

1 pound crab-apples
1 lemon

Directions

Cut the yellow rind of the lemon very thin.
Squeeze and strain the juice from the lemon.
Boil the yellow rind with the crab-apples according to the jelly recipe.
Add the lemon juice just before the jelly thickens enough to put in glasses.

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.

Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Crab + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together387 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together343 recipes

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