Name: Orange Sauce
Ingredients: 1 Seville orange; 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper; ⅓ cup claret; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 pint stock or gravy; 1 bay leaf; 1 onion, sliced

Why it works: Orange and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Orange Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the sliced onion with half the peel of the orange and the bay leaf in the stock or gravy.
Strain the mixture, then add the claret, orange juice, and seasoning.
Bring to a boil and serve in a hot tureen.

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.

Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Orange + oniontop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Seville orange: Adds bright acidity and citrus aroma from its peel and juice.
Claret: Adds wine acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Stock or gravy: Forms the savoury liquid base that the other flavours simmer in.
Onion: Releases sweetness and savoury body into the stock as it simmers.