Name: Another Cold Caudle
Ingredients: 1 pint gruel; 1 walnut-sized piece of butter; lemon or orange peel; wine, brandy, milk, or spices (as desired)

Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Another Cold Caudle

Ingredients

1 pint gruel
1 walnut-sized piece of butter
lemon or orange peel
wine, brandy, milk, or spices (as desired)

Directions

Boil 1 pint of gruel.
When hot, add a walnut-sized piece of butter and some lemon or orange peel.
Stir in wine, brandy, milk, or spices as desired.

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.

Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Gruel: Forms the thick, warm base that the other flavourings are stirred into.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the warm base.
Lemon or orange peel: Adds aromatic citrus oils that perfume the drink.