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 ↓
Fruit Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove all the tissue from the oranges and shred them separately.
Mix the shredded oranges, pineapple, crystallized cherries, and green crystallized fruit together.
Let the mixture stand in the orange and pineapple juice for 30 minutes.
Serve
Serve in punch cups with the juice or with a perforated spoon in baskets made of orange or egg kisses, topped with grated coconut.
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.
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Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,664 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Oranges
- Provide the juice and shredded fruit that form the base of the salad.
- Pineapple
- Adds juiciness and tangy sweetness, and its juice blends with the orange.
- Crystallized cherries
- Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
- Green crystallized fruit
- Adds sweetness and chewy texture with a bright colour.
The step that matters
Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes. Standing lets the sugar in the crystallized fruit draw out and mix with the orange and pineapple juice, so the syrup forms and the fruit softens slightly. Serving too soon leaves the fruit dry and the juice thin.
“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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