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Salad

Pineapple and Celery Salad

A fresh salad of diced pineapple and blanched celery tossed with dressing and whipped cream, garnished with pecans and celery tips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and pecans work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 294 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Pineapple and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and remove the eyes from the pineapple, then cut it into slices almost an inch thick and dice it.

  2. Wash and finely chop an equal amount of well blanched celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the salad dressing and whipped cream, mixing lightly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Stir a little more than half of the dressing mixture with the diced pineapple and celery.

  2. Heap the mixture on a serving dish and spread the remaining dressing over the top.

  3. Garnish with salted pecans and blanched celery tips.

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 + pecanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pineapple + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together230 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Celery + pecanstop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together219 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Provides the main fruity body and sweet, slightly acidic flavor of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savory contrast to the soft fruit.
Salad dressing
Binds the diced fruit and celery and gives the salad its creamy, tangy coating.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds richness and a smooth, airy texture.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing lightly. Whipped cream holds air that gives the dressing its lightness. Overmixing deflates it, leaving a dense, runny topping.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, cream, pecans. 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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