Name: Wine Jelly
Ingredients: 2 calf's feet; 3 lemons, juiced; 2 eggs, separated; 4 oz. loaf sugar; 1 inch stick of cinnamon; 4 cloves; ⅓ cup sherry; ½ cup brandy; 5 pints cold water

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the calf's feet into four pieces each.
Wash the pieces in a basin of cold water.
Place the pieces in a stew-pan and cover with cold water.
Bring the water to a boil, then remove the stew-pan from heat.
Transfer the pieces to a basin of cold water and wash them again.
Empty the stew-pan and wash it well.
Return the pieces to the stew-pan and add 5 pints of cold water.
Bring to a boil and skim often.
Let it boil gently for 5 hours.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a basin.
Cool the basin in a cool place until the stock is perfectly cold.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,209 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cinnamon, clove, sherry, brandy):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cinnamon, clove, sherry, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.