Name: Orange Baskets
Ingredients: oranges; chopped pineapple; chopped nuts; candied cherries; whipped cream; violets

Why it works: Orange and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,664 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Orange Baskets

Ingredients

Directions

Cut a piece from each side of the orange, leaving a strip for the handle.
Remove the pulp and mix it with chopped pineapple, nuts, and candied cherries.
Fill the orange shells with the mixture.
Top with a spoonful of whipped cream.
Pierce a hole through the handle and run stems of a few violets through them.
Sprinkle a few violets over the plate.

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 + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pineapple + nutstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together162 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together886 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Orange + nutstop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,574 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).