Name: To Make Capon Ale
Ingredients: 1 old capon; 1 ounce caraway seeds; 1 ounce anise seeds; 2 ounces hartshorn (or substitute with gelatin); 1 handful fresh rosemary tops; 1-2 pieces of mace; 1 lemon peel; 2 gallons strong ale; sugar (to taste)

Why it works: Caraway and anise share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 38 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Make Capon Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the capon by removing the feathers and crushing the bones while keeping the skin intact.
Stuff the capon's belly with caraway seeds, anise seeds, hartshorn, rosemary, mace, and lemon peel.

Make the ale

Place the stuffed capon into a pot of hot water or mash.
Add the capon to 2 gallons of strong ale while it is fermenting.

Rest and serve

Let the mixture stand for 2-3 days, then drink it.
Alternatively, bottle the ale after 4-5 days and add a lump of sugar to each bottle for a brisker 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.

Caraway + anisetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Rosemary + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together845 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Anise + rosemarytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Anise + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together91 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,778 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Capon: Provides the meat and fat that flavour the ale as it stands.
Strong ale: Serves as the liquid base that carries the flavours of the stuffing.
Caraway seeds: Add a warm, earthy aroma to the ale.
Anise seeds: Add a sweet, licorice-like aroma to the ale.
Hartshorn: Acts as a gelling agent, in place of gelatin, giving body to the mixture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and a livelier taste when added to bottles.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (caraway, anise, gelatin, rosemary, lemon, sugar):

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Nutmegfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against caraway, anise, gelatin, rosemary, lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.