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Cranberry Jell-O® Salad

"I originally found this recipe in an OLD, OLD e-mail, so thought I'd post it here now."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mandarin orange and gelatin work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 12 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-pinene, which smells pine, resin. The science ↓

The recipe

12 servings
Prep15 min

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Finely chop the fresh cranberries in a food processor or by hand, then transfer them to a large bowl.

  2. Stir the white sugar into the chopped cranberries and let them stand for 10 minutes so the sugar softens them.

  3. Place the cranberry-flavored gelatin mixes in a large heatproof bowl and pour in the boiling water. Stir for about 2 minutes until the gelatin is completely dissolved.

  4. Stir the cold water into the dissolved gelatin.

  5. Drain the mandarin oranges and the crushed pineapple well, then stir them into the gelatin along with the sugared cranberries.

  6. Chop the pecans coarsely and fold them into the gelatin mixture.

  7. Pour the mixture into a 9 by 13 inch dish or a mold lightly coated with cooking spray, if using.

  8. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or until firm. Cut into squares and serve chilled.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mandarin orange + gelatintop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  2. Pineapple + cranberrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Mandarin orange + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Gelatin + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mandarin orange + cranberrytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mandarin orange, pineapple, cranberry, gelatin, sugar):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Walnutbetter flavor fit
  3. Pecansthe original
  4. Beansabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against mandarin orange, pineapple, cranberry, gelatin, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).