Name: Macedoines
Ingredients: grapes; cherries; berries; currants; oranges; pineapples; brandied fruits; jelly

Why it works: Grape and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 709 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Macedoines

Ingredients

Directions

Suspend a bunch of grapes, cherries, berries, or currants on their stems in the center of a jelly mold.
Pour in a little jelly when it is quite cold but not set.
Use ingenuity to imbed different fruits in circles, pouring a little jelly over each layer successively.
Do not reheat the jelly; keep it warm while the mold is on ice and the first layers are hardening.

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 + pineappletop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Currant + pineappletop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together142 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

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