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Grapefruit En Surprise

A chilled grapefruit cocktail served in a double oyster glass with French dressing, ice, parsley, and ribbon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Grapefruit En Surprise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill the outer bowl of a double oyster cocktail glass with fine cracked ice.

  2. Insert the smaller cup to chill.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the grapefruit crosswise and remove all the bitter membrane.

  2. Place the grapefruit into the inner cup and pour over the French dressing.

  3. Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

  4. Tie a ribbon that matches your table decorations around the stem of each glass before serving.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Grapefruit + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Grapefruit + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapefruit
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its fresh, tart citrus flavour.
French dressing made with lemon juice
Adds acidity and tangy flavour to the grapefruit.

The step that matters

Remove all the bitter membrane. The white pith and membrane around grapefruit segments carry bitter compounds. Leaving them in makes the dish taste harsh, so removing them thoroughly keeps the flavour clean and pleasant.

Swap the grapefruit

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, parsley):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Grapefruitthe original
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, parsley. 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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