Name: Assiette Montée Garnie De Caramels
Ingredients: 6 cedrats; 6 whole oranges; 5 medium-sized bigarades; assortment of small fruits (strawberries, black and white grapes, hazelnuts, blanched almonds, decorated apple paste, pistachios, pistachio paste, walnuts); wooden toothpicks

Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Assiette Montée Garnie De Caramels

Ingredients

6 cedrats
6 whole oranges
5 medium-sized bigarades
assortment of small fruits (strawberries, black and white grapes, hazelnuts, blanched almonds, decorated apple paste, pistachios, pistachio paste, walnuts)
wooden toothpicks

Directions

Drain the cedrats, oranges, and bigarades.
Arrange the cedrats on the first tier, oranges on the second, and bigarades on the third of your plate.
Prepare a complete assortment of small fruits.
Place one fruit on each toothpick, ensuring the stems of strawberries and grapes are long for elegance.
Group all fruits by inserting the toothpick into the fruits on the plate, mixing colors and types.
Position the fruits slightly angled outward, ensuring the weight of the caramels does not tip them over.

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.

Almond + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Hazelnut + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together47 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Hazelnut + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together186 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pistachio + walnuttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together195 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, grape, hazelnut, almond, pistachio, walnut):

Figfits better
Cherryfits better
Avocadofits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, grape, hazelnut, almond, pistachio, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.