Name: Pineapplk Jardiniere
Ingredients: 1 ripe pineapple; ½ cup sherry (or substitute with brandy, rum, or champagne); 2 oranges, peeled and segmented; 1 banana, sliced; ½ pound Tokay grapes, seeded and halved; Sugar to taste; Cracked ice for serving

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 ↓

Pineapplk Jardiniere

Ingredients

1 ripe pineapple
½ cup sherry (or substitute with brandy, rum, or champagne)
2 oranges, peeled and segmented
1 banana, sliced
½ pound Tokay grapes, seeded and halved
Sugar to taste
Cracked ice for serving

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

Cut the top from the pineapple and set it aside for the cover.
Remove the inside of the pineapple, discarding the core, and scoop out the juice without breaking the rind.
Place the rind and the cover in a cool place.

Make the fruit mixture

In a bowl, combine the pineapple flesh with sherry and let it chill on ice.
Mix in the orange pulp, grapes, banana, and any seasonal berries.
Add sugar to taste, then fill the pineapple rind with the mixture.

Serve

Replace the cover and set the pineapple on a dish of cracked ice.
Serve in champagne glasses.

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.

Pineapple + bananatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together733 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Banana + grapetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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

Pineapple: Provides the juicy flesh and serves as the edible serving vessel for the dish.
Sherry: Adds aromatic depth and a fortified wine flavour to the fruit juices.
Oranges: Contribute bright citrus sweetness and acidity that balance the pineapple.
Tokay grapes: Add juicy sweetness and a firm texture to the mixture.
Banana: Adds creamy body and mild sweetness to the fruit mixture.

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Strawberryfits better
Orangethe original

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