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Pineapple Salad

Chilled salad of pineapple on lettuce, topped with pimento strips, riced cream cheese, paprika, and dressing of olive oil, sugar, malt vinegar, lemon juice, salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Arrange thick round slices of canned pineapple on lettuce leaves.

  2. Place thin strips of pimento on top of the pineapple to represent a flower.

  3. Fill the center with riced cream cheese and sprinkle with paprika.

  4. Ensure everything is ice cold.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix olive oil, paprika, sugar, malt vinegar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt until well combined.

Serve

  1. Pour about 1 tablespoon of dressing over each salad.

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. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

  4. Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Provides a soft, rich filling that contrasts with the crisp pineapple and lettuce.
Olive oil
Adds fat and body to the dressing, carrying flavour and giving it a smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness of the pineapple.
Malt vinegar
Adds sharp acidity to the dressing, sharpening the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Ensure everything is ice cold. Cold keeps the cream cheese firm enough to hold its shape when riced and filled, and keeps the salad crisp and fresh until serving rather than soft and watery.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, lettuce, cream cheese, olive, sugar, malt, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, lettuce, cream cheese, olive, sugar, malt, vinegar. 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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