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Dessert

Macedoine of Fruit

A chilled fruit salad made with wine jelly, canned fruits, syrup, salt, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and pear work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 223 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Macedoine of Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare wine jelly according to package instructions.

  2. If using fresh fruit, boil it in syrup, then drain before layering.

Layer and set

  1. Layer the jelly and fruits in a mold, starting with a layer of jelly.

  2. Fill the mold after the jelly has started to set but is not fully firm.

Freeze

  1. Place the mold in a mixture of salt and ice, covering it tightly.

  2. Let it freeze for several hours.

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. Wine + peartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pear + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together254 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Wine + syruptop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Wine jelly
Forms the set gel that holds the fruit in place and gives the salad its firm body.
Various fruits
Add flavour, colour and pieces of texture suspended within the set jelly.
Syrup
Sweetens the fresh fruit and carries flavour when the fruit is boiled before layering.
Salt
Lowers the temperature of the ice bath so the mold freezes more quickly.

The step that matters

Fill the mold at the right jelly stage. If the jelly is fully firm, the layers will not bond and fruit may float or sit loosely. If it is still liquid, the fruit will sink and the layers will blend together. Partial setting lets each layer anchor to the one below.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, syrup):

  1. Pearthe original
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, syrup. 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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