Name: Ice Box Dessert
Ingredients: 1 large mold or individual molds; fruit cocktail (cut-up oranges, grapefruit, and canned pineapple); 3 cupfuls diced celery; boiling water; 2 cupfuls medium-thick white sauce; 6 medium-sized potatoes

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 ↓

Ice Box Dessert

Ingredients

1 large mold or individual molds
fruit cocktail (cut-up oranges, grapefruit, and canned pineapple)
3 cupfuls diced celery
boiling water
2 cupfuls medium-thick white sauce
6 medium-sized potatoes

Directions

Make the Ice Box Dessert in a large mold or individual molds.
Let it stand for twenty-four hours in the refrigerator.
On Sunday morning, prepare the Fruit Cocktail with cut-up oranges, grapefruit, and canned pineapple.
Place the Fruit Cocktail in the refrigerator.
Dice the celery and cover it with boiling water.
Cook the celery until tender, then drain and allow to cool.
Prepare 2 cupfuls of medium-thick white sauce and keep warm in a double boiler.
Pare the potatoes and cut them lengthwise.

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.

Orange + grapefruittop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together233 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).
Grapefruit + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together95 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Grapefruit + celerytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, grapefruit, pineapple, celery, sauce):

Lettucefits better
Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, grapefruit, pineapple, celery, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.