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Dessert

Sheldon Salad

A fruit salad of pineapple, orange, banana, grapes, candied cherries, and walnuts thickened with a cornstarch syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and banana 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 ↓

Sheldon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pineapples, oranges, bananas, white grapes, and candied cherries into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cut fruit with the juice from the pineapples.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water and boil it.

  2. Allow the boiled mixture to cool, then pour it over the salad.

  3. Add the English walnuts and mix well.

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. Pineapple + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Banana + grapetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  4. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the cooled liquid into a light, glossy coating for the fruit.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty contrast to the soft fruit.
Candied cherries
Add sweetness and bright colour to the salad.

The step that matters

Boiling the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch must be fully boiled in the water to swell and thicken; if it is not brought to a boil, the coating stays thin and can taste starchy. Cooling before pouring keeps the fruit from softening further.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, orange, banana, grape. 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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