Name: To Prepare Rennet to Turn the Milk
Ingredients: 1 calf stomach; coarse sea salt; 2 quarts fresh spring water; 1 handful sweet-briar; 1 handful rose-leaves; 1 stick cinnamon; 40 cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Prepare Rennet to Turn the Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stomach

Clean the calf stomach inside and out with coarse sea salt.
Let it drain for a few hours.
Sew it up with two handfuls of coarse sea salt or stretch it on a salted stick.

Alternative methods

Alternatively, keep it in salted water and soak a piece for repeated use.
For another method, clean the maw as above, then soak in 2 quarts of fresh spring water with sweet-briar, rose-leaves, cinnamon, and cloves.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Rose + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together892 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Rose + clovetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together410 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Calf stomach: Provides the rennet enzymes that curdle milk into a firm set curd.
Coarse sea salt: Cleans and preserves the stomach by drawing out moisture and limiting spoilage.