Skip to main content

Chilled Fresh Fruit Salad

This is a refreshing fruit salad that can be made in advance and won’t oxidise and go brown. It makes a delicious dessert after a rich main meal.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Melon and papaya share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 12 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (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. Halve the cantaloupe, scoop out the seeds, and cut the flesh into bite-sized cubes.

  2. Halve the mangoes around the stone, score the flesh in a grid, and scoop the cubes into a large bowl.

  3. Halve the papaya, scoop out the black seeds, and cut the flesh into bite-sized pieces.

  4. Zest the orange, then peel it and separate it into segments, removing any pith and membrane. Add the segments and zest to the bowl.

  5. Cut the passion fruit in half and scoop the pulp and seeds over the other fruit.

  6. Add the cantaloupe and papaya to the bowl and toss everything gently with the raspberries.

  7. Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes so the fruit is cold.

  8. Serve in bowls with a spoonful of chilled crème fraîche on top.

By bbcfood. 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. Melon + papayatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Mango + papayatop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Mango + passion fruittop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Melon + mangotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Mango + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the passion fruit

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (melon, mango, orange, papaya):

  1. Pineapplebetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  4. Passion fruitthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against melon, mango, orange, papaya. 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).