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Salad

Wedding Salad

A salad of grapes, pears, marshmallows, dressed with whipped‑cream dressing and served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 252 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Wedding Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the grapes.

  2. Remove the seeds.

  3. Cut the marshmallows into two pieces.

Make and serve

  1. Mix the grapes and marshmallows lightly with the cooked dressing.

  2. Fill half of each pear with the mixture.

  3. Serve in a cup of lettuce.

  4. Make the dressing white by adding whipped cream.

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. Grape + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pear + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together92 recipes

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

  3. Grape + lettucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cream + lettucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,121 recipes

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

  5. Pear + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

White grapes
Provide the main fruit body, juiciness and natural sweetness in the salad.
Marshmallows
Add sweetness and a soft, chewy texture that contrasts with the fruit.
Cooked dressing
Adds moisture and binds the grapes and marshmallows together.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and makes it white and creamy.
White pears
Hold the filling and add mild sweetness and juiciness.

The step that matters

Mix the grapes and marshmallows lightly with the cooked dressing. Gentle mixing keeps the grapes from breaking down and the marshmallows from becoming sticky or mushy, so the salad keeps its texture.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Lettucethe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, pear, 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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