Name: Macedoine De Fruits
Ingredients: Wine Jelly (made with Champagne); small fresh fruits (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, sliced apricots, or peaches); sections of skinned and seeded oranges; preserved or brandied fruits

Why it works: Apricot and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Macedoine De Fruits

Ingredients

Wine Jelly (made with Champagne)
small fresh fruits (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, sliced apricots, or peaches)
sections of skinned and seeded oranges
preserved or brandied fruits

Directions

Prepare Wine Jelly using Champagne.
Rinse the mold with cold water.
Pour jelly into the mold to a depth of ½ inch.
Set the mold on ice to harden.
Keep the remaining jelly cool but not hardening.
Once the jelly in the mold is set, arrange the fruit neatly inside.
Pour just enough jelly over the fruit to cover it.

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.

Apricot + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together703 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Wine + champagnetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together172 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Champagne + apricottop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Champagne + orangetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Wine + apricottop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together247 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).