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Fruit Cocktails

A chilled mixed fruit dessert served in wine glasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Grapefruit and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 233 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Cocktails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut grapefruit in half, remove seeds, and scoop out the pulp.

  2. Do the same with the oranges.

  3. Peel and slice the bananas.

  4. Cut white grapes in half lengthwise and remove seeds.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix all the fruits with sugar and chill on ice until very cold.

  2. Serve in wine glasses on small plates.

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.

  1. Grapefruit + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Banana + grapetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Grapefruit + grapetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-p-menthene-8-thiol (grapefruit).

  5. Banana + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapefruit
Provides tart juice and pulp that give the fruit cocktail its acidity and bright flavor.
Oranges
Add sweetness, juice and aroma, balancing the tartness of the grapefruit.
Bananas
Contribute soft texture and natural sweetness to the mixed fruit.
White grapes
Add juicy body and mild sweetness, giving the mix a crisp bite.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grapefruit, orange, grape, sugar):

  1. Pineapplefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grapefruit, orange, grape, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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