Why it works: Pear and plum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Iced Fruit
Ingredients
Directions
Dip the fruit in beaten egg white.
Coat the fruit in crushed loaf sugar.
Repeat the dipping and coating until a thick layer forms.
Slice pineapples; halve pears, peaches, and plums after peeling; ice cherries and strawberries with stems; remove pith from oranges and lemons before slicing.
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.
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Pear + plumtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together163 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Pear + peachtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together114 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Pineapple + peartop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together169 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, pineapple, pear, peach, plum, orange):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Applefits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, pineapple, pear, peach, plum, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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