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Dessert

Frozen Salad

A chilled dessert made with bananas, pineapple, mayonnaise, gelatin, sugar, lemon juice, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Frozen Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve gelatin in cold water.

  2. Add hot water, sugar, and lemon juice.

Add fruit and freeze

  1. When the mixture is half congealed, stir in cut-up bananas, pineapple, and mayonnaise.

  2. Pack the mixture in ice and salt and leave until frozen.

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. Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid base so the salad holds its shape when chilled and frozen.
Bananas
Add body, natural sweetness, and a soft, creamy texture to the frozen salad.
Pineapple
Adds juicy fruit texture and a bright, tangy flavor.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen mixture a smoother, creamier mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Lemons
Provide acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the fruit when the mixture is half congealed. If the gelatin mixture is still too liquid, the bananas and pineapple sink and the texture separates. If it is already too firm, the fruit will not mix in evenly and forms lumps. Partly set gelatin suspends the pieces throughout the salad.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, sugar, pineapple, gelatin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, sugar, pineapple, gelatin. 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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