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Dessert

Frozen Fruit Salad

A chilled salad of pears, cherries, pineapple, mayonnaise, and whipped cream served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 169 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Frozen Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Drain juice from the fruit.

  2. Cut pears and pineapple into pieces and remove the stones from the cherries.

Make and freeze

  1. In a bowl, combine the fruit with mayonnaise and whipped cream.

  2. Freeze the mixture immediately.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves with additional mayonnaise.

  2. Add nuts if desired.

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. Pear + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Lettuce + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

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

  5. Pineapple + nutstop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Adds creaminess and a tangy richness that binds the fruit together.
Whipped cream
Adds airy fat and body, giving the frozen salad a smooth, light texture.
Pears
Provide the sweet, mild fruit base of the salad.
White cherries
Add sweetness and bright fruit flavour throughout the salad.
Sliced pineapple
Adds sweetness and a slightly acidic note that cuts the richness.

The step that matters

Freeze the mixture immediately. Freezing right after combining keeps the fruit firm and the cream stable, so the salad sets cold rather than becoming watery or separating as it warms.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, cream, pineapple, lettuce):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, cream, pineapple, lettuce. 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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