Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓
Chicken Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the chicken into very small pieces and break the bones.
Place the chicken pieces in a water-tight stone jar.
Set the jar in a kettle of boiling water and boil for 3 hours.
Strain the liquid and place it in a cold area.
Season the jelly with loaf sugar, coarse sea salt, black pepper, mace, and lemon juice.
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 + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,092 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 (chicken, sugar, pepper, lemon):
- Marjoramfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sugar, pepper, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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