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Salad

Prune and Pineapple Salad

A salad of steamed prunes filled with cream cheese, topped with pineapple slices, lettuce, dressing, and maraschino cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 271 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Prune and Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Steam large prunes for 3 hours.

  2. Remove pits from prunes, allowing 3 prunes per person.

  3. Fill each prune with Philadelphia cream cheese.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange a slice of pineapple on a lettuce leaf.

  2. Place 3 filled prunes on the pineapple and add a spoonful of dressing in the center.

  3. Garnish with maraschino cherries between each prune.

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. Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Cream cheese + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together250 recipes

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

  3. Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Large prunes
Provide the main body of the salad and a soft, sweet, chewy texture when steamed.
Philadelphia cream cheese
Fills the pitted prunes, adding a mild, creamy richness that contrasts with the fruit's sweetness.
Slices of pineapple
Add bright acidity and juiciness that balances the sweet, dense prunes.

The step that matters

Steaming the prunes. Steaming for the full time softens the dried fruit so it becomes tender enough to pit and fill without tearing. Under-steamed prunes stay firm and may split or resist the filling.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, pineapple):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, pineapple. 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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