Name: Fruit Punch
Ingredients: 12 lemons, juiced; 6 sweet oranges, juiced; 1 can diced pineapple; 1 pint cherries, canned or bottled; 2 quarts freshly brewed tea; Sugar, to taste; Ice

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Juice the lemons and sweet oranges.

Mix and serve

In a large bowl, combine the lemon juice, orange juice, diced pineapple, cherries, and brewed tea.
Sweeten the mixture to taste.
Serve the punch over a block of ice in a punch bowl.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + teatop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together333 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons: Provide acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sweetness.
Sweet oranges: Add juice for sweetness, body and fruity aroma.
Tea: Adds tannins for a light bitter depth and a base for the liquid.
Sugar: Adds sweetness, balancing the acidity of the citrus juices.