Name: Fruits Meringués
Ingredients: 250 grams rice; assorted fruits (quince, pineapple, pears, candied apricots, halved greengages, candied orange peel, whole cherries); apricot marmalade; syrup with liqueurs; meringue

Why it works: Quince and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 133 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fruits Meringués

Ingredients

250 grams rice
assorted fruits (quince, pineapple, pears, candied apricots, halved greengages, candied orange peel, whole cherries)
apricot marmalade
syrup with liqueurs
meringue

Directions

Prepare the rice

Cook the rice in cream until done.
Allow the cooked rice to cool and mold part of it in a border mold.
Invert the rice border onto a serving plate.
Fill the center with a layer of rice.

Assemble and finish

Arrange the assorted fruits in a pyramid shape on top of the rice layer.
Surround the fruits with more rice.
Cover the surfaces with apricot marmalade.
Top with a thin layer of meringue.
Decorate with additional meringue using a piping bag.
Finish by surrounding the base with large meringue pearls.

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.

Quince + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pear + apricottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together218 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pineapple + peartop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together169 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pineapple + apricottop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together377 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Quince + apricottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the main body of the dish, setting into a molded border and center layer as it cools.
Cream (in the method): Cooks with the rice to give it a richer, moister, creamier texture.
Apricot marmalade: Adds sweetness and a glossy, fruity coating over the fruits and rice.
Meringue: Provides a light, airy sweet topping and decoration once baked or set.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, quince, pineapple, pear, apricot, syrup):

Plumfits better
Peachfits better
Vanillafits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, quince, pineapple, pear, apricot, syrup. 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.