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Dessert

Jellied Grape Fruit

A chilled gelatin dessert made with grape fruit juice, pulp, and spices, served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jellied Grape Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine boiling water, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon; boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the soaked gelatine to the saucepan and stir until dissolved; then strain through cheesecloth.

Make the grapefruit mixture

  1. Mix the grape fruit juice, pulp, and pulverized sugar in a bowl until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Stir the grape fruit mixture into the gelatine when it begins to thicken.

Mold and serve

  1. Mold the mixture in shallow pans and refrigerate until firm.

  2. Cut into cubes and serve on lettuce leaves with a spoonful of mayonnaise on top.

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.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cinnamon + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable mold once chilled.
Grapefruit juice
Provides the sharp, tangy flavour and liquid base of the jelly.
Grapefruit pulp
Adds bits of fruit texture and fresh citrus flavour throughout the set jelly.
Pulverized sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the tartness of the grapefruit.
Sherry
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the grapefruit mixture into the gelatine when it begins to thicken. If the gelatine has set too far, the fruit will not blend evenly and the mold may be lumpy. If it is still too hot and thin, the fruit may float or sink and the jelly may set unevenly.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, grape, sherry. 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.

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