Name: Sheeps' Trotters
Ingredients: 6 sheeps' trotters; 2 blades of mace; a little cinnamon; lemon peel; a few hartshorn shavings; a little isinglass; 2 quarts of water; ½ pint of new milk

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sheeps' Trotters

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the sheeps' trotters, mace, cinnamon, lemon peel, hartshorn shavings, and isinglass in 2 quarts of water until reduced.
When cold, remove the fat.
Give nearly ½ pint of the mixture twice a day, warming it with a little new milk.

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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,346 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).