Name: Cholera and Liver Complaints
Ingredients: 1½ ounces sassafras bark; 2 ounces sarsaparilla root; 1 ounce angelica root; 1 ounce white agaric; 1 ounce galls; 1½ ounces senna leaves; 1 ounce aloes socotrine; 6 cents worth of English saffron; 1 gallon old rye whiskey

Why it works: Angelica and saffron share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Cholera and Liver Complaints

Ingredients

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a large pot.
Warm the mixture on the stove for one whole day to macerate.
For cholera, take 2 ounces several times a day.
For liver complaints, mix with half whiskey and take 2 teaspoons 3 to 4 times a day.

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.

Angelica + saffrontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together18 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Saffron + ryetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Angelica + ryetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).