Name: Aspic Jelly
Ingredients: animal matter (fowls, game, meat, or alternatives like shin of beef, knuckle of veal, rabbit); gelatine or isinglass (if no gelatine-yielding ingredients are available); pickles; tarragon leaves; hard boiled eggs; jelly

Why it works: Tarragon and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,789 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Aspic Jelly

Ingredients

animal matter (fowls, game, meat, or alternatives like shin of beef, knuckle of veal, rabbit)
gelatine or isinglass (if no gelatine-yielding ingredients are available)
pickles
tarragon leaves
hard boiled eggs
jelly

Directions

Prepare a jelly by boiling animal matter to extract gelatine.
Strain the jelly until clear.
Pour a small amount of half-melted jelly into a jelly mold and let it set.
Arrange layers of cooked fillets, pickles, tarragon leaves, and hard boiled eggs in the mold.
Fill the gaps with jelly and top with more half-melted jelly.
Repeat layering as needed based on the size of the 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.

Tarragon + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,789 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together184 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).