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Dessert

Banana and Apple Salad

A fruit salad of apples, bananas, nuts, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 435 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana and Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped apples, sliced bananas, and chopped nuts, then toss gently to mix the ingredients.

  2. Serve with whipped cream on top.

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. Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 recipes

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

  2. Banana + nutstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  3. Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Apple + nutstop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Banana + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide crisp texture and a tart contrast to the sweeter fruit.
Bananas
Add sweetness and a soft, creamy texture.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, savoury note against the soft fruit.

Swap the nuts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, banana, cream. 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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