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Dessert

Molded Cherry Salad

A gelatin dessert made with cherries, pineapple, and citrus juices, molded into a firm shape.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Molded Cherry Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin

  1. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water.

  2. Add lemon and orange juice.

  3. Chill until partially set.

Set the salad

  1. Fold in fruits.

  2. Pour into a wet mold.

  3. Chill until firm.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cherry + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Cherry + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together689 recipes

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

  5. Cherry + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cherry gelatin
Provides the set that holds the salad together once chilled.
Boiling water
Dissolves the gelatin so it can set evenly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet cherry flavor.
Pineapple chunks
Add texture and sweetness to the set gelatin.
Royal anne cherries
Add sweet-tart fruit flavor and visible color.

The step that matters

Chill until partially set before folding in fruit. Gelatin that is too liquid lets fruit sink to the bottom, while gelatin that is too firm will not blend evenly with the fruit. Partial setting suspends the pieces evenly throughout the salad.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cherry, gelatin, pineapple, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cherry, gelatin, pineapple, orange. 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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