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Drink

Fruit Cocktail

A mixed fruit beverage made with orange, banana, pineapple, grapefruit, and sugar, served chilled with strawberry garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and grapefruit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 233 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut equal portions of orange, banana, and pineapple.

  2. Add half the amount of grapefruit.

  3. Sprinkle sugar over the fruit and mix.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the mixture.

  2. Serve in cocktail glasses and garnish with strawberries.

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. Orange + grapefruittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Pineapple + grapefruittop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Orange
Adds juicy body and bright citrus flavor to the fruit mix.
Banana
Adds soft texture and natural sweetness to the mixture.
Pineapple
Adds juicy texture and tropical acidity to the fruit mix.
Grapefruit
Adds tart, bitter citrus notes that balance the sweetness.

Swap the grapefruit

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, banana, pineapple, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Grapefruitthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, banana, pineapple, sugar. 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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