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Oranqe and Banana Mebinoue Olage

A frozen fruit froth made from oranges, bananas, sugar, water, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Oranqe and Banana Mebinoue Olage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel, seed, and finely chop the oranges.

  2. Cover with granulated sugar and let sit for 30 minutes.

  3. Peel and chop the bananas.

  4. Stir the bananas into the sugared oranges.

Freeze

  1. Add cold water and the unbeaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a freezer and churn until it reaches a frozen fruit froth.

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

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

  2. Sugar + bananatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Banana + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the main citrus flavor and acidity, and their sugar-drawn juice forms the base of the froth.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out its juice while it sits.
Bananas
Add body, sweetness and a creamy texture to the frozen mixture.
Egg whites
Trap air when churned, giving the frozen mixture a light, foamy texture.

The step that matters

Churning until frozen fruit froth. Churning while the mixture freezes breaks up ice crystals and incorporates air. Stopping too early leaves it icy and dense, while churning too long can make it grainy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, banana, egg. 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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