Name: Green Cheese
Ingredients: 2 parts sage; 1 part marigold leaves; a little parsley; milk

Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Green Cheese

Ingredients

2 parts sage
1 part marigold leaves
a little parsley
milk

Directions

Steep the sage, marigold leaves, and parsley in milk overnight.
Follow the cheese-making process as described, ensuring the milk is warm when adding rennet.
Stir the curd gently until whey separates, then drain and press the curd.
Salt the curd and mix by hand before placing it in the cheese vat.
Press the cheese and change the cloth frequently until no more whey remains.
Turn and rub the cheese with a coarse cloth to prevent mold.

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.

Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,445 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + milktop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,011 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sage + milktop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together719 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).