Name: Pine-apple Salad
Ingredients: 1 ripe juicy pineapple; powdered loaf sugar; ⅓ cup good old rum (or brandy)

Why it works: Pineapple and rum work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 451 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pine-apple Salad

Ingredients

1 ripe juicy pineapple
powdered loaf sugar
⅓ cup good old rum (or brandy)

Directions

Prepare

Remove the skin and eyes from the pineapple.
Tear the pineapple into pieces or slice it up.
Pile the pieces in a decorative shape.

Finish and serve

Dust liberally with powdered sugar.
Moisten the whole with rum or brandy.

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.

Pineapple + rumtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together451 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple: Provides the fruit base, with juice and sweetness that the sugar and rum build on.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness and a dry sugary coating that contrasts with the juicy fruit.
Rum or brandy: Adds aroma and a warm alcoholic flavour that complements the pineapple.