Name: Pork Jelly, Dr. Ratcliff’s Restorative
Ingredients: 1 leg of well-fed pork; 3 gallons of water; ½ ounce mace; ½ ounce nutmeg; salt to taste

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pork Jelly, Dr. Ratcliff’s Restorative

Ingredients

Directions

Cut up the leg of pork and break the bone.
Place it in a pot with 3 gallons of water and simmer gently.
Add mace and nutmeg and let it stew.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Once cooled, remove the fat.
Serve a chocolate cupful three times a day, adding salt to taste.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pork + macetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,565 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Pork + nutmegtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,825 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).