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Salad

Sheldon Salad

A fruit salad of pineapple, oranges, grapes, cherries, bananas, and walnuts in a sweet sauce of pineapple juice, sugar, cornstarch, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Olive M. Hulse · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Sheldon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut a pineapple into small squares.

  2. Seed four oranges and cut them fine.

  3. Seed half a pound Malaga grapes and cut them.

  4. Cut half a pound candied cherries into halves.

  5. Slice two bananas very thin.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the cornstarch with a little water.

  2. Add the pineapple juice, the sugar, and the rest of water.

  3. Boil until thick.

  4. After it is cold, add the nuts.

  5. Serve on lettuce leaves and pour over the following sauce: The juice of the pineapple, one cup of sugar, one tablespoonful of cornstarch, one cupful walnuts cut fine, and half a cupful of water.

Finish

  1. This may be frozen if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

697Calories
16 gProtein
4 gFat
150 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Banana1 medium (118g)105
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Olive M. Hulse. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Walnut + bananatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + bananatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the sauce its body.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the salad.
Oranges
Add fresh citrus acidity and juiciness to the fruit mix.
Bananas
Add soft texture and mild sweetness to the fruit mix.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when boiled, and it must be mixed with cold water first so it does not clump. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce that will not cling to the fruit.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, orange, banana):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, banana. 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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