Name: Jelly Macedoine
Ingredients: 399 g of gelatin; water; fruit (e.g., strawberries, raspberries, stoned cherries, grapes, apples, peaches, bananas); burnt sugar (optional); carmine or cochineal (optional); green spinach (optional)

Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Jelly Macedoine

Ingredients

399 g of gelatin
water
fruit (e.g., strawberries, raspberries, stoned cherries, grapes, apples, peaches, bananas)
burnt sugar (optional)
carmine or cochineal (optional)
green spinach (optional)

Directions

Dissolve gelatin in water over medium heat, stirring slowly until it boils.
Once boiling, let it simmer for 2-3 minutes, then strain through a jelly bag until clear.
Pour a layer of jelly into a mold, about ½ inch thick, and place on ice until firm.
Add a layer of fruit on top of the firm jelly layer.
Carefully pour more jelly over the fruit until it is covered by another ½ inch layer.
Repeat layering with different fruits and colors of jelly until the mold is full.
Chill until set, then invert the mold onto a dish to serve.

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.

Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together303 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + bananatop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together130 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Grape + bananatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

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

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

Swap the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, grape, apple, peach, banana, sugar):

Capsicumfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Beetrootfits better
Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, grape, apple, peach, banana, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.