Name: Jelly Moulds
Ingredients: jelly of your choice; whipped cream; cochineal or sliced beetroot; lemon juice; spinach juice; water

Why it works: Beetroot and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 280 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Jelly Moulds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare your jelly according to package instructions.
Once the jelly is set, fill a cylindrical mould with it.
For layered jellies, allow each layer to cool before adding the next.
To color the jelly, mix cochineal or beetroot with lemon juice for red, and spinach juice with a little water for green.
After the jelly is set, top with whipped cream before serving.

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.

Beetroot + spinachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lemon + spinachtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,109 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Beetroot + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together574 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cream + spinachtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,130 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Cream + beetroottop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together407 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).