Name: Oranges Filled with Jelly
Ingredients: Oranges; Jelly of 2 or 3 colors; Pistachio nuts (for decoration); Angelica (for decoration); Shredded almonds (for decoration); Whipped cream (optional, for garnish)

Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Oranges Filled with Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Shape the rind of each orange into a cup with a narrow handle across the top.
Using a sharp knife, remove half the rind of each orange, leaving the handle intact, and scoop out the pulp.
For decoration, cut the edges of the cup and handle into points or another design.
Fill the cups with jelly.
Decorate the light jelly with pistachio nuts or angelica, and the dark jelly with shredded almonds.
Optionally, use whipped cream as a garnish.

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.

Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pistachio + angelicatop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,125 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Angelica + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together135 recipes

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

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

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pistachio, nuts, angelica, almond, cream):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Cherryfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pistachio, nuts, angelica, almond, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.