Name: A Dish of Jellied Fruits
Ingredients: 9 oranges; 3 large lemons; 3 yellow bananas; 3 red bananas; 4 large apples

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

A Dish of Jellied Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Cut a round piece from the top of each orange, about the size of a quarter.
Use a small spoon to carefully detach the pulp from the skin without splitting it.
Scrape out the skin and pulp, leaving the inside smooth.
Soak the orange skins in cold water until ready to use.
Prepare the lemon skins in the same manner.
Cut an end from each banana and scoop out the inside with a long spoon.
Cleanse the banana skins and place them in water.
Cut the apples in halves and dig out the core, cutting closely to the peel.
Place the apple halves in water.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Banana + appletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).