Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 1 large or small banana, sliced; ice cream, to taste; pineapple, canned or fresh, to taste

Why it works: Banana and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 733 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

1 large or small banana, sliced
ice cream, to taste
pineapple, canned or fresh, to taste

Directions

Slice the banana into large or small pieces.
In a bowl, combine the banana slices with ice cream.
Add pineapple, either canned or fresh, to the mixture.

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.

Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together733 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Banana + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,180 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + pineappletop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,574 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Banana: Provides natural sweetness and a soft, creamy texture once sliced.
Ice cream: Adds fat and creaminess, and melts slightly to coat the fruit.
Pineapple: Adds bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the banana and ice cream.