Name: Sago Jelly
Ingredients: 1 gallon water; 4 ounces sago; 2 ounces tapioca; 2 ounces hartshorn shavings; 2 ounces rice; 2 ounces pearl barley; 1-2 sticks cinnamon

Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sago Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

Boil 1 gallon of water for three hours.
Add 4 ounces of sago, 2 ounces each of tapioca, hartshorn shavings, rice, and pearl barley, and 1-2 sticks of cinnamon.
Strain the mixture.

Serve

Warm a cupful of the strained liquid with any agreeable addition.

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.

Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Barley + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together127 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sago: Its starch thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the jelly body.
Tapioca: Its starch adds thickening and a smooth, glossy texture.
Rice: Its starch releases into the liquid during simmering, adding body.
Pearl barley: Its starch releases into the liquid during simmering, adding body.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma to the liquid.