Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 2 oranges, finely chopped; 1 banana, finely chopped; 1 pound white grapes, seeded; 1 cup nuts; 3 sticks celery, finely chopped; 3 apples; boiled dressing; 3 or 4 cherries (for garnish)

Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the oranges, banana, grapes, nuts, celery, and apples into small pieces.
Combine all the chopped ingredients in a large bowl.

Serve

Serve with boiled dressing on top.
Garnish with cherries for an attractive presentation.

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.

Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Banana + appletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Banana + grapetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide crisp texture and fresh bulk to the salad.
Banana: Adds soft texture and natural sweetness to the mixed fruit.
White grapes: Add juiciness and sweetness, keeping the salad moist.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savoury contrast to the fruit.
Nuts: Add crunch and richness through their fat content.

Swap the nuts

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

Walnutfits better
Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Nutsthe original

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